


Soul Dissonance

by the_misshapen_polyp



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Angst and Humor, F/M, Gen, Madness, Romance, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-10-18 21:22:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 31
Words: 72,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17588663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_misshapen_polyp/pseuds/the_misshapen_polyp
Summary: In which Maka and Soul are having distinct trouble with their resonance, and Stein is abjectly creepy in his fascination with finding out why. Plot-heavy SoMa fic.





	1. Chapter 1

It was  _no_  secret around the academy that Soul Evans and Maka Albarn were having some serious trouble with their resonance.

Perhaps that was an understatement.

It had started a couple of months back, now. Of course, back then they'd just assumed that one or two off days weren't a serious problem. They were tired. They needed a break. They were young. Tsubaki had told Maka not to worry, not least because she'd had her own resonance problems with Black Star, for obvious reasons, the most prominent of which being his completely incompatible personality.

Despite her friends' best attempts to make her feel at ease, Maka had  _still_  worried. After all, particularly strong resonance link was their second-best quality in battle, after their fighting skill and experience. The problem itself had puzzled her inquisitive mind particularly because it had come after a patch during which their resonance seemed to be at an all-time- _high_ , and there was no tangible reason at all why it should have faltered so suddenly.

Of course, after three whole months of crappy resonance, Maka's anxiety around the whole thing had become a little more justified; not to mention shared.

Three months of this meant that despite being experienced three-star weapons, they were being given easy, one-star missions. And it wasn't just their problem anymore, either. Having the strongest pair at the academy effectively out of use was just as painful for Maka and Soul as it was for the management.

Kid's first port of call is to summon them to his office, Dr Stein in tow, for an impromptu evening meeting to discuss this- what he calls- ' _temporary challenge'_.

So, this is where Soul finds himself, on a hot and sunny Saturday afternoon- sitting in Kid's miserable office next to his nervous and frustrated Meister, his stressed and pressured boss, and an entirely too scalpel-happy professor.

Well, that wasn't entirely fair. Kid's office was quite nice, if one totally disregarded the current atmosphere hanging about. Beautiful white drapes cooperate with the long, slender windows to allow in just the perfect crack of sunlight to keep the office well-lit but dark enough to retain its studious aura. The furnishings were minimal, but that's how Kid liked to decorate.

There was a single chair, an ornate wooden thing on the opposite side of the desk, which was currently occupied by their well-dressed boss, Death's Kid himself.

Dr Stein stands ominously behind Kid, letting shadows dance around his features in a manner most satisfactorily creepy in line with his very persona. Every now and then, he coughs informatively-  _could someone even cough informatively? –_ and pushes his glasses further up his nose, before cutting in with some vital information.

Maka and Soul stand on the opposite side of them, representing a dichotomy of interests themselves. She stands bolt upright, stock-still, awaiting orders. Her knitted brows and fidgeting hands give her soul away upon a single glance of the room. Soul leans against the wall and as usual, makes a concerted effort to look like he's not listening.

"You know why I've called you here." Kid begins. Soul can picture it in his mind, the cogs turning and interacting as he meticulously plans and censors every word tumbling out his mouth. He leaves a long enough pause to suggest that, if either of them had any doubt as to why they were standing in this room, they could voice it.

Neither of them do, obviously.

Kid continues. "This resonance issue has become a recurring problem. For you two, and for the academy."

Maka nods, desperately hanging on to his every word as if it were gospel.

"Speaking as your boss, I need my two best fighters to be on top form. Speaking as your friend…" he pauses, about to split his functions as he so often found himself doing these days. "It's clear to me the effect that this resonance issue is having on the two of you, and your… partnership. And it's not positive."

_Yeah, you don't say._

"I would hope that the both of you would agree with me that it's best that we nip this in the bud. Figure out what's causing this, once and for all. And sort it out."

Maka interjects.

"We've tried everything." She claims, shaking her and frowning in concerted effort to keep her emotions under wrap. "I've been studying day and night, I've scoured every book in the library. I've conducted analysis on the link, I can't… I can't find any reason why it might be failing," she explains, ending her sentence with a bitter vocal twinge.

_Is her miserable tone because she wants to resonate better, or because for once, she couldn't figure something out?_

Kid nods.

"I know how hard you have been trying, Maka." He acknowledges.

_The fact that she gets a kick out of that makes his jaw clench._

Kid cocks his head, turning to Soul.

"And Soul, I trust you've been doing your part in trying to resolve this issue? After all, Resonance is very much a dance between two… or more… souls."

Soul clears his throat.

"Yeah." He says gruffly.

_Don't think he doesn't notice how Maka's shoulders clench in objection to his answer._

He remains outwardly unmoved; unbothered. Kid continues his introduction.

"If you two cannot fix this, it might be time to consider  _other pairing options_." He says, picking his tone very carefully, very neutrally. "I am personally of the belief that this would be a sub-optimal decision, not least because you two have been paired successfully for so very long."

Soul responds coolly to Kid's clinical and clipped diagnosis of the situation, barely allowing himself to react. He's hyper-aware, of course, of that fact that Dr Stein's eyes are boring a hole into his skin as they speak. Sure, his eyes are hidden as always behind the psychotic glint of his round glasses, but Soul knew better than anyone what that man was capable of uncovering with his mind.

"What would happen if we stopped being a pair? Who would we even fight with?" Maka sounds incredulous at the mere suggestion, her body language screaming the answer that she doesn't voice: ' _no_ '.

Stein pushes his glasses up his face and pipes up.

"Speaking logically, Soul's autonomous form is strong enough to sustain him as a standalone weapon. With some training, he could be of a similar level of Giriko, or Justin." Stein coughs. "And Maka… there's no shortage of eager and talented young souls who would lap up the chance to be carved; shaped; trained by you." his head tilts upwards; to the side as Maka shakes her head side-to-side vehemently. "Of course, that's if you did decide to go down that road. Personally, I would advise  _not_."

Kid turns to Soul again.

"And you, Soul?" he prompts, when merely the movement of the direction of his gaze isn't enough to force an answer out of the boy.

If Kid picks his words to be neutral and cause as little a reaction as possible, Soul picks his words to carry a  _lot_  of meaning, clunky and brash as they may be.

"Maka said it: it's not working. Maybe it's time to move on."

He simultaneously watches three things: Maka barely choking back a gasp; clenching her gloved fists into balls, while Stein's eyebrows do a very intriguing twitch-y thing.

_She doesn't even look at him._

He keeps his right hand carefully shoved deep in his empty jeans pocket, so the room can't see him anxiously and unconsciously tapping out a symphony onto the side of his leg, a habit he'd developed in his childhood and managed to retain throughout his teenage years.

"It seems the two of you don't agree." Kid says in a perfunctory manner, clasping his hands together, his voice soft. He's one-part sympathetic, two-parts agitated. For weeks he's watched his closest friends at total odds with each other, arguing, deliberately irritating each other, avoiding each other. So, it's with a lack of surprise or novelty that he says the following sentence. "You have to try to reach some sort of agreement."

"I've tried!" Maka starts up, the fire in her temperament she's been keeping on simmer exploding. "You don't know how hard it is!"

Kid nods.

"All weapon-partners have disagreements. It comes with the nature of being so close to one another."

"Not like this! He won't even TALK to me!" Maka accuses, her temper still flaring.

Kid glances to Soul's tired figure, still leaning.

"There's two sides to any story." He tries for diplomacy and achieves redundancy.

_What is this, group therapy?_

Soul's eyes shift to Maka for second, before moving to Kid, before settling on the oak flooring. He admires its craftsmanship; the intricate carving consists of crosses which tesselate perfectly. It's  _extremely_ Kid.

"What exactly happens when the two of you try to resonate?" Stein jumps in, injecting science where Kid's diplomacy tactic fails. "Maka, you said you conducted an analysis?"

Maka's back moves to be a little straighter.

"I tried-" she corrects herself. " _We_  tried to do witchhunter, but… it was like we couldn't even get past the starting block. Every time I felt our wavelengths begin their resonance, it would meet this huge…  _resistance_." She says, her tone laced with regret. "I couldn't figure out what was causing it. It stopped everything past that dead in its tracks."

Dr Stein scratches his non-existent beard.

"Interesting." He mutters to himself.

_Keep your morbid curiosity to yourself._

Unfortunately, Soul's cynical stream of consciousness remains inside his head, and Dr Stein does exactly the opposite.

"If you could please attempt to resonate, so I can look inside your souls?"

_Why does it feel like this goes one step beyond science?_

Maka coughs, and glares at her partner, outstretching her arms and displaying the palms of her hands expectantly, readying herself to wield his metal form. A white, discordant flash of light signals his transformation, landing all eleven feet of his impressive, metallic being, accurately and delicately in her gloved hands.

She breathes in deep, closing her eyes for a second.

They feel that familiar breach of familiarity, a different wavelength upsetting the delicate balance of one's own wavelength, and just when Maka's passionate, healing waves are about to accommodate his contradicting jagged, enigmatic waves, something,  _something_ fires back at it; closes up the bond; seals the two of them off for good.

" _Fascinating_." Dr Stein breathes, making a mental note of something while Maka tosses her weapon to the side, swearing under her breath; Soul just about managing to inelegantly stumble and regain his footing without eating dirt as he turns human.

_Or, should he say, without eating freshly waxed intricate floorboards._

"See! This happens every time! There's no way past it."

Stein nods.

"Does it hurt?" he enquires. "When you are forced out, Maka?"

Soul notices that he doesn't ask a similar question to  _him_. This kind of thing was  _exactly_  why he was opposed to letting the maniac doctor examine them in the first place.

_He knew too much, that sly academic._

Maka responds in the negative, and the doctor once again scratches at his head, but Kid speaks before he can say anything else, causing the entire room to remember that Kid was even there.

"Maka, Soul. I can only propose that Stein work with you very closely over the next three weeks, see if there's anything he can do." Kid and Dr Stein share a dark look. "If there's no improvement over this period, then we'll consider the alternative." He makes a pained expression. "I'm at a loss. I believe that this difficulty has already taken too much of a toll on two our best students."

Maka's ponytail flies up and down in a sea of submissive nods, her hands clenched but her toes betraying the fact her body is trembling. Whether of jittering nerves or abject rage, well- that was any man's guess.

Soul nods his acquiescence.

"I promise, we  _will_  find out what is causing this." Dr Stein puts on his Serious FaceTM and Soul wonders how he's possibly going to go three whole weeks of intense soul therapy without anyone finding out that he's already hyper-aware of exactly the culprit of their little 'Resonance problem' and he highly  _doubts_  that it's going to disappear any time soon.

So: he keeps his mouth shut, and his expression bored.


	2. Chapter 2

"Soul, answer me one question: you pay bills, correct?" Black*Star's gratingly feminine voice greets him like a punch in the face at exactly 6:30 in the morning, jolting him out of blissful sleep and into un-blissful consciousness.

"Yes," he groans.

"And you pay your rent on time, correct?" Black*Star asks again, with the same repeated crappy, condescending intonation.

"Yes."

"So, in light of this- please remind me  _again_  why  _you're_  the one who has to crash here, and  _Maka_  gets to enjoy your lovely big apartment with Tsubaki," he accuses, reaching out a long finger and flicking his friend on the nose, causing Soul to flinch and scowl. Black*Star of course is referring to the fact that Soul has taken up seemingly permanent residence on his and Tsubaki's couch for the last few weeks, showing no signs of rectifying the less-than-desirable living situation.

Soul grumbles and stands up, stretching his body out in a long yawn, showing tufts of his white stomach hair underneath his classic slightly-too-small purchased-before-puberty pyjama t-shirt.

"And if Maka did leave, and I had the apartment, where do you think she'd go?"

Black*Star sniffs.

"Fair point," he shrugs. "I mean, you're a lot lower maintenance than her." Black Star plops himself down next to his friend. "And a much better Halo competitor." He yawns, stretching and cracking his back loudly and obnoxiously. "Though, still not quite on my Godly level!"

Soul doesn't point out that his K:D ratio is a few points higher than Black*Star's. After all, he was grateful that Black*Star was allowing him sanctuary into his place like this, even if their lumpy couch gave him chronic back pain.

It was far better than the alternative.

"Soul, buddy…" Black*Star starts, filling Soul's blood with dread. "You know I love having you here." He starts, his punctuated sincerity a rare treat. "We have good fun, you and me. Playing Xbox, chilling out; you, learning from my Godlike excellence," he adds, in what Soul hopes is an attempt to inject some subtle humour into his otherwise serious spiel. "And don't get me wrong, you're a way funner roommate than Tsu," Soul knows Maka's rubbed off on him, because he finds himself irrational irked by Black*Star's invention of the word 'funner'. He ignores this impulse. "But… you got to sort this thing out with Maka, man."

_Dammit, why does the naïve innocence of that scratchy, somehow pre-pubescent voice manage to make him feel so guilty?_

Soul had  _figured_  that eventually Black*Star and Tsubaki would tire of this whole arrangement, weeks back, when it first came about. It had been a pretty nifty set-up in the first instance, back when the whole 'this is a temporary glitch' idea had been proven wrong, and Soul and Maka had begun a quick descent into becoming completely unbearable.

Maka's perfectionist traits had gone haywire, causing her to want to try each and every single potential solution to this problem of theirs. She'd become sleep-deprived, completely insatiable for some sort of progress, some form of sign that it wasn't all doomed and they'd be fine. Which in turn, caused her to become irritable, angry and hurt when no sign or progress reared its head.

In turn, Soul's reaction had become to become  _so_  profusely laid-back that it spiralled and tipped over into depression; apathy; cynicism; stoicism. Not typically traits which inspired Maka to cool off, heightening their problems to even more unbearable levels.

Their lack of ability to blow off their extra steam by fighting was compromised, too. Even practice battles in class had become tedious; impossible; each and every time resulting in tension; resulting in Maka sometimes screaming, sometimes crying, sometimes hitting him, and sometimes stomping off to quietly rage. Resulting in Soul to shove his hands in his pockets, roll his eyes and say nothing.

It hadn't taken long for it to become  _far_  too tiring for their friends to keep navigating their way through the fights, without Black*Star inadvertently saying something which worsened the situation. Tsubaki had borne the immediate brunt of this, and staged a sort of intervention, kindly suggesting that she move in with Maka for the time being, and Soul could live in  _peace_  with his best friend.

Which had resulted in their current set-up, and Soul's chronic need to see a chiropractor.

"I know, she's being a total bitch at the moment. And you guys have got all that crap going on with your Resonance, or whatever." Black*Star pops open a bag of potato chips that he seems to have pulled out of thin air, and chucks one gaily into his mouth. "But not speaking to her will only make things worse, ya know. Take it from me. I know about these things," he boasts, grinning from ear to ear.

"Dr Stein wants us to try something new." Soul informs him unsurely. "That's what Kid's meeting was about last night."

"You're going to let that  _maniac_  cut you open!? SOUL, for the love of GOD, don't let him do it!" Black*Star wails melodramatically, grabbing the wrong end of the stick with two almighty hands. "He'll steal your kidneys!"

Soul scoffs.

"Not that."

"Oh." Black*Star's volume decreases. "Then what?"

"Some training exercise." He replies nonchalantly as ever. "I told them it's no use."

"Well, you have to try. What's the alternative?"

"The  _alternative_  is that we stop being partners." Soul breathes the words out in an exhausted sigh. Black*Star's innocent eyes widen in curious shock. He even comically places a hand over his mouth in a particularly cartoonish fashion.

"Really?" he exclaims, his mind imploding. "No  _way_." He gauges Soul's reaction and then continues. "Well, fuck! It can't be that bad… surely you don't want that?" he delves, disbelieving.

Soul awkwardly rubs his neck.

"It's probably the easiest option."

"Fuck that! Since when are you and especially that crazy bint  _Maka_  all over the  _easiest_  option!?" He exclaims, righteously. "Soul! She's been your partner for six years! How can you just want to give it all up?"

_Yeah, tell me something I don't already know._

"Star, we can't even live together right now. We can't even have one civil conversation without her screaming at me. I can't…" he scowls, tensing his jaw. "Tell me how we're supposed to be partners."

Black*Star blows a huge amount of air into his cheeks, wide-eyed and sad, running a hand through his spiky blue locks.

"Yeah, man, that blows." He offers, and in a rare moment of clarity, realises that Soul doesn't want to talk about it for the time being, changes the subject. "Hey, I just bought this new game, it has multiplayer, wanna see if you can beat me…?" he seems to completely forget about their previous discussion, and Soul wonders whether he did actually have a moment of self-awareness or whether his attention span was  _really_  that dire these days.

He opts for the latter and silently reaches for the controller on the table.

"Hah! You'd better PRAY FOR MERCY!"

And with that, he seems to forget all about their previous conversation.

Just as well, really.

* * *

Tsubaki was making a little more effort with Maka.

However she didn't seem to be making a lot of headway, if her sad visits to The Bachelor Pad and hushed discussions in her bedroom with Black*Star were anything to go by. Soul had learned to tune out the whispers by pretending that they were having some sordid affair they had to keep hush-hush, so he could avoid the inconvenient truth- that his presence in their house was becoming a problem.

This particular evening, however, he opts for an alternative method of avoidance. Well, perhaps avoidance wasn't quite the right word.

He's not sure what prompts him to do it, maybe it was a result of that godawful meeting or something, and the fact that he's being coerced into spending four hours tomorrow with her as part of Stein's supposed 'fix'. These are probably most of the reasons that he finds himself stomping angrily across the few blocks it takes to get back to his place, scowling the entire way and ending up on his front doorstep.

It's an odd sensation, knocking on your own front door, but that's what he does. God forbid that he might walk in on her  _naked_ , or something. He was never quite sure what it was that girls got up to when they lived exclusively with each other. His imagination quite often got the better of him when it came to those sorts of subjects.

She opens the door, clearly expecting anything other than his angry face greeting her, by the way she leaps back as if he's a Demon come to reap her soul for his collection.

"Soul," she says his name coolly, in stark juxtaposition to her previous yelp.

_Well, she certainly wasn't in any form of undress._

"Can I come in?"

She hesitantly shifts her body to the right of the door frame, so he can move past her and into his own apartment. Subtly sniffing the air, he concludes that girls must do  _something_  differently when they live together, if the flowery scent current hanging about in the air is any indication of activity.

"What are you doing here?" she asks as she follows him to the middle of the room as if he's a stranger she doesn't quite trust in her home alone.

He cracks a few of his knuckles, hoping vainly that the resultant 'click' that fills the air is enough noise that he won't have to speak. Unfortunately, his watertight plan doesn't work, and bone cracks are only finite space-fillers.

"Thought we could. Y'know, talk about it."

Maka scoffs instinctively.

"Do you  _actually_  want to talk, or do you just want to stand there silently while I do all the talking?" she accuses, jabbing a pissed-off finger into his chest. "And then have the nerve to tell Kid that you've been putting in effort into this partnership," she adds, hurt creeping into her voice, unbidden.

"Uh. The first one?" he replies, ineloquent as ever.

"Fine." She says, not meeting his eyes and walking further into their living room to plonk herself huffily down on their couch. "You want to start by explaining why you suddenly want to dissolve our partnership and be on your own?" Again, to her immense dissatisfaction, her voice comes across as upset and petulant as opposed to the commanding tone she tries to summon.

He waits until he's sure she's listening before speaking.

" _This_ … is killing us." He speaks lowly. "You know it is. Maybe we're just not compatible anymore."

_He doesn't make it obvious how much more having to say these things is killing him._

"Three weeks, he said." Maka shakes her head. "I don't want a new partner. We've been together since the beginning." She swears. "For fuck's sake, Soul, you were-  _are_ \- my best friend. We're roommates. Not to mention- we argue all the time! Why the hell would something suddenly come between us like this?!"

_She must be really upset. She never usually swears._

He pretends not be hurt by her initial use of past tense. He doesn't tell her that he's pretty sure he knows what the problem is, that he figured it out months ago, and it's his fault- mostly because, because in spite of everything, he doesn't want her to hate him even more.

"I don't know." He says, partially truthfully. "I don't know why now."

Maka closes her eyes.

"Please, please. Please work with us. With me. We can get through this, I know it." She begs, and not for the first time. This time, it doesn't fall on deaf, unlistening, unbending ears. She stands up as she says it, and walks towards him, facing him, her head tilted up to meet his eyes. "If you really don't think I'm worth it, if you don't think our partnership is worth it, tell me now, and we can give up." She articulates herself valiantly through her increasingly tear-filled eyes. "Do you want to give up on me?" she repeats, her voice reducing down to the softest whisper.

_Godammit, why'd she have to say it like that?_

His arm reaches out without any sort of provocation or involvement from his brain whatsoever to touch her shoulder. His fingers weave absently between strands of her soft straw-colored hair, distractedly staring at the fibres between his thumb and forefinger and feeling her fast pulse against them.

She swallows and tries not to let the fact he's finally showing her his soft side reinstall a glimmer of hope inside her, as well as the word he says next.

"No." It comes out quiet and rough, cutting a thin slice through the palpable atmosphere between them.

_Of course he didn't._

He just wasn't sure if he had a choice.


	3. Chapter 3

After three completely separate, failed attempts at different approaches to Resonating, including one in which Stein actually attempted to resonate with them  _at the same time_ , the professor decides to change his tack, on account of Miss Marie's sage wisdom on the matter, and invites them down to his office to  _talk it out._

Soul is disbelieving when he gets word of it from Spirit, of all people.

_When he called it group therapy, he had been being flippant._

They gather together in Dr Stein's dusty and neglected office, the three of them. The only light is supplied by the stir-crazy yellow of the eco-bulb that Miss Marie screwed in there in a vague and misplaced attempt to combat some of the dinginess caused by the lack of window. The lack of window itself owing to the fact that Dr Stein preferred to do most of his work in the relative peace and quiet of the Shibusen dungeons.

It didn't make for an overly pleasant mood-setter.

When Maka pictured  _therapy_  in her mind, it conjured up visions of fraught women on chaise lounges, wearily discussing their failed marriages and cheating husbands, all the while an eager, over-familiar white-coat scrawled down notes on a sheet and nodded frantically before making drastic assumptions about his looney-toon patient.

When Soul did the same, it flooded back horrific memories of hours of his eleven-year-old self being locked in a tiny box room with some idiot academic with round glasses, and forced to discuss his odd, dissonant music; about his brother; about his relationship with his parents; and how being a demon weapon made him  _feel_. All at the behest of his parents, of course, and their total lack of understanding or acceptance of any of the choices he'd made in life.

Of the two of them, Soul's conjuring of events is probably more akin to this situation.

"Apologies for the location," Dr Stein grimaces, in response to their obvious matching disdain. "I've been informed that students don't enjoy this kind of environment very much." He clarifies, but doesn't offer any sort of alternative arrangement, so Maka makes herself as comfortable as possible on a hard, plastic chair.

"Good acoustics down here," Soul comments idly, gaze creeping up the mouldy old high ceilings in somewhat feigned interest.

Maka's eyes hurt from trying so hard not to roll them at his inanity.

Dr Stein clasps his hands together and motions for Soul to take a seat next to his meister. He does so, if a little hesitantly.

"Evans. Albarn. I thought we'd have a little interlude into previous sessions with a little sharing exercise. It's become rather overt to me that the two of you are… having rather a lot of arguments as of late."

_It took three hours-long evenings in a row to figure that out?_

He glances at his two subjects, eyes flitting between them and clears his throat out of desire for effect rather than any outstanding phlegm. "As you can both probably guess, Resonance problems are almost always caused by an internal issue, as opposed to an external factor." A little psychotic smile forms on his face, sending a chill down Soul's spine. "First things first." He coughs again. "Starting with you, Albarn. What are your current problems with Soul?"

Maka seems utterly taken aback by this question. Soul barks a surprised laugh, bitterly thinking to himself that perhaps she simply doesn't know how far down the line to start.

She rushes to clarify things.

"As a partner?"

"As anything." The doctor replies, seriously. "Pretend he's not here. Tell me what's wrong with him. Don't miss off a thing. And don't hold back, remember, the point of this exercise is to  _help_  you communicate better."

_He can't believe it, the very fucking textbook definition of couples counselling. He would laugh, if he didn't want to slice his wrists open at the thought of Maka exhaustively listing all of his flaws._

"Well, to start with…" she just jumps right in. "He often burns the food when it's his turn to cook. And then lies about it! And he's so messy, he just leaves cups around the apartment, and drinks milk late at night straight out the carton- and then leaves them out!" Maka begins to fume. "After showering, he wanders out in nothing but his  _underwear_ , I mean, if I did the same thing, he'd think I was a total freak, but there he goes just getting it all out for me to look at-" she cuts off, her face burning a deep red.

_Hah. He knew it!_

To his credit, Soul doesn't laugh at all outwardly.

"And he's such a bad communicator! He keeps everything from me, even when he's injured, for God's sake- as if that will help make things better. We've lived together for  _six_  years, and I barely know anything about his life, or his family, or his childhood. All I know is that he's a prodigy at the piano, and even  _that_  I barely get to hear," she complains. "And don't get me started on battles- putting himself at risk for my sake all the time, even though I never asked for him to DIE for me. Because hey, Soul, maybe that would really suck for me? Ever think about  _that_?" her rant changes direction from Dr Stein to Soul with that last sentence, enunciating her syllables to really portray her emotions.

_Honestly? No, he hadn't._

Dr Stein narrows his eyes beneath those glasses, taking in all those many, many faults with some bemusement as Soul turns away and folds his arms over his chest defensively.

"Irritating living habits aside- Maka, would you say your main frustrations with Soul are his aloofness, and… let's say…  _sacrificial_  battle instincts?"

She slumps back on her chair, defeated.

"Yes."

"Okay, noted. Now, Evans, how would you defend these traits?"

_Is this guy for real?_

He decides flippant is the way to go.

"Uh, A. It's my personality. And B. That's my job as her weapon."

Stein refrains himself politely from mentioning that he can see what Maka means about the lack of communication. The boy really wasn't too forthcoming with anything here or there.

"Albarn, do you agree with this assessment of events?" he opts for, instead.

"NO!" she throws her whole being into disagreement with this statement. "A, Better communication is all about effort, not personality and  _B_ ," she says with profound emphasis. "For the last time, it's  _not_  your job to hurt yourself for me!"

Stein doesn't need to cut in this time, because Soul rebuttals all on his own.

"I  _do_  put in effort." He tries to explain, deciding not to formulate a comeback on the second point, because they'd been down that road too many times before for him to think that it might lead anywhere productive.

Stein's role as the middle man between them gets made completely redundant as he sits and watches, his eyes swinging back and forth between his patients like a pendulum.

"Where's this effort you put in, then? Is it you  _avoiding_  me at every opportunity? Is it you moving in with 'Star so you don't have to see me? Or perhaps deciding that you'd rather be an auto-weapon because you're too lazy to work out our problems?"

"I did those things because I  _don't want to hurt you_ , you idiot." he fires back, becoming a little too emotionally invested in this conversation for his liking.

_Damnit, Evans, reign it in._

Either Stein's just remembered he's left the oven on in his home, or his Stein-y sense is tingling because a flash of his intelligent eyes stops their argument dead in its tracks as Soul realises he may have said a little too much.

"Interesting. You don't want to hurt her?" he enquires. "What do you mean by that, Evans?"

_Oh, fuck it all._

"I meant…" he says slowly, postulating. "I meant that I didn't want to push our Resonance too hard and cause damage." He plucks out of thin air, quite pleased with his ability to bend the truth. "Nygus explained that it was a possibility with brittle wavelengths." He adds, that part truthful.

"What does that have to do with living with each other?" Stein asks, seamless in his questioning.

Luckily, Soul has something for this, too.

"Living with her just meant that she'd try and Resonate all the damn time," he explains, again truthfully. "It wasn't helping either of us."

Stein asks Maka if this is true. She replies in the affirmative but says it like someone's shoved a finger in her mouth and is forcing the word out of her.

"Ok, Evans, you now. What is it about  _Maka_  that upsets  _you_?"

_Probably nothing. Probably everything._

_Why did he get the feeling that Stein was maybe enjoying this whole thing a tad too much?_

He refrains from going on a futile rant about her bad toe-clipping habits or incessant reading then discarded her unwanted booked in his skull, and instead tries to think of something more relevant.

"She… expects too much from me."

_Was that pathetic? Probably. Maybe it was just about pathetic enough that Stein might actually take pity on him._

_"_ Expand on that." The intrigued professor demands. Soul's just glad he's not writing anything down on a clipboard.

_What could he possibly say? That Maka expected constant perfection to match her own? She's naïve of the fact that Soul didn't even remotely live up to that standard, and that naivete was a threat to her own goddamn safety?_

Soul looks up to see a surprised and curious looking Maka and Stein both staring him down.

_Oh, he said that aloud._

"A threat?" Stein repeats, damningly. "Do you consider yourself a threat to Maka's safety?" Soul's mind races to find some justification for that statement, but he doesn't get there is time. "You mentioned earlier about not wanting to hurt Maka. Is that why you're holding back from resonating?"

Soul is simultaneously pissed and impressed that in just twenty short minutes of one session, Stein seems to have already figured him out. He remains quiet.

"Soul… is this about the black blood?" her timid, inquiring voice cuts through the thick fog which descends down on them.

Stein's interest bears down on them heavy and strong, and Soul can practically  _hear_  his thought process, it's so obvious. All he hears in reality is the gentle click of Stein's lighter as he sets the cigarette in his mouth aglow, taking a deep breath in without moving his eyes from the pair of them.

"Black blood is often an aid to stronger resonance, so I would doubt it." Stein voices. "The thing about black blood is, it wants to spread, and there's no better way to spread it than by the process of Soul Resonance. For it to suddenly flare up and prevent you from linking souls is highly unusual."

"Not to mention, I had thought that you had control over it," Maka bites her lip, doubtfully. "I truthfully hadn't even considered it. I thought that was all over with."

_Their stares are beginning to make him feel a like a fucking maths problem._

_He's in way too deep with this shit._

"A sudden surge in black blood levels should have been easily detectable by either of us," Stein continues, but his confidence in his previous convictions is slowly being replaced by something else, a sneaking suspicion rooted deep in his mind, of a theory to the contrary. "However... I believe we've made some progress, here." He shoves his glasses further up his face in a scholarly fashion. "Evans… tomorrow, I want you to come to my office, at the same time. Alone."

His foreboding feelings that Stein's invitation sound a little like the beginning of a bad horror flick mix uncomfortably in his chest with a newfound understanding- if not quite  _appreciation_  of the secret-spilling qualities of a couples counselling session.

"Oh, and Soul- learn how to cook without burning it. It's a  _very_  useful life skill."


	4. Chapter 4

Soul feels like punching a few walls, or maybe slashing a few walls into dusty cubes with his retractable scythe arm. He's pissed off that this stupid problem is even  _happening_  to him, he's pissed off that despite her immense capacity to be shrill and irritating, he misses the hell out of Maka, and he's mostly pissed off that it's gotten to this ridiculous point, and now the  _teachers_  were starting to figure him out.

_Maybe he should just tell her._

He clamps down on that thought as soon as it crops up and shoves it to the back of his mind.

_No, not an option._

_But… maybe he should tell Dr Stein? Spirit? Someone?_

He's on his trudging his slow, dingy way around the winding dungeons to his meeting with Dr Stein, so if there was ever a time for him to come clean and get this all off his chest, now might possibly have been the time to consider it.

He slumps against Dr Stein's office walls when he reaches the fourth orgate wooden door in a series of four, a layer of dust sticking to the side of his hoodie most unpleasantly on the wall where he leans. He wrinkles up his nose, deciding to knock. After all- when barging into Dr  _Stein's_  laboratory, you never quite knew what you might see; pre-made appointments be damned.

"Come in." the cold, echoey voice resonates through the walls. Soul pushes open the heavy door, expecting the worst and -

Oh. It's just Stein, grading some papers.

_Normalcy doesn't suit him._

Soul cranes his neck a little up to the desk to see if he recognizes any of the names of the papers he's marking, and as if reading his mind, the professor suddenly and jarringly whips the pile upside-down mid scrawl. His hands make a bang against the desk, his eyes wide and bugging out of his scalp.

"You wanted to see me." Soul says unsurely. He's unnerved by the idea that this man wants to see him alone, and that he won't be able to hide behind his Meister's talkative nature to get through this particular meeting.

"Yes." Stein muses back, his voice ricocheting off the jagged, unpainted brick walls in a discordant fashion. "Evans, please, take a seat."

Soul brushes the residual dust that's settled into his arm off in another vain attempt to get it off, but he's met with no avail, so he sinks down into his chair, accepting his doom and accepting his dirtiness.

Stein starts up again.

"You know, you and I have something in common," he starts.

_A penchant for eclectic, unusual hobbies that nobody else quite understands? The fact that they both have the distinct misfortune of looking like hideous monsters out of some sort of horror novel?_

_"_ Madness?" Soul guesses. Stein nods his head subtly downwards.

"Moreover, our susceptibility to madness. Mine; a natural extension of my personality and soul, deepened by my experiences with Medusa.  _Yours_ ; an unfortunate combination of your soul type and your black blood infection." He drawls. "But this isn't anything new, is it?"

Soul shakes his head by way of response.

"At first, we were careful about which missions we'd send you on." Stein continues. "Anything where we deemed there would be influences which might negatively affect your mental state, and we avoided it. But… I kept pushing Lord Death, and eventually he agreed to a sort of… experiment, if you will."

_Why was he not surprised that he's always been an unwilling, unaware participant in one of Stein's studies?_

_"_ We started to give you those missions that we'd been holding out on you. And consistently, you came back fine. It was extraordinary." He pushes his glasses up his nose once again. "And then Asura came again. That was the ultimate test of your limit. And yet: you were fine. You came back."

Soul realises where he's going with this.

"Maka's Grigori soul…" he says quietly.

"As you're aware, Maka's particular soul type is very well positioned to deflect madness wavelengths and neutralise yours. I have first-hand experience of this type of healing soul power- Marie."

Soul remains silent, but Stein doesn't pause.

"In one of our earlier sessions, we tried to get the two of you to resonate while Miss Marie's healing wavelength influenced the both of you." There's a small pause. "And I watched, with my soul perception."

_Had he had soul perception on? Soul hadn't noticed._

_Perhaps Stein was a more diligent soul perceiver than he realised._

His thoughts come true almost immediately as Stein confirms that theory for him. "Any threat, or negative influence would have been neutralised by Marie. You were safe to resonate. And yet,  _you_  didn't." Stein's tone changes, his intonation lower and his stance leaning back accusingly.

Soul swallow a thick lump in his throat.

_Maybe now was the time to come clean._

"I-" he starts, but Stein doesn't let him.

"You're stopping the Resonance." He repeats his point again, softer. "I assume, to protect Maka from being infected by the blood?"

_Just say it._

"Yes."

Stein's head cocks to the side, not dissimilar to that of a curious puppy.

" _Why_ , though, after all these years, is-"

"Our Resonance, it got too strong. It's… it's trying to pull her down." He reveals, feeling a burden lifting off him while simultaneously feeling another pang of nerves bundle together in his stomach at the thought of Stein knowing the whole truth. "She's not  _safe_ ," he concludes.

"So, you end the link before she can get close." He repeats. "Why didn't you say anything before, if you felt she was at risk?"

Soul doesn't reply.

"You've gotten good at  _hiding_  from soul perception, Evans. Perhaps that's because your partner is so qualified." Stein comments. "Are you capable of letting me perceive your soul, now?"

His body instinctively resists but his mind is tired to argue. He closes his eyes, and balls his fists, summoning the whole being of his soul in his mind, letting down his guard and letting it wander free, unhidden.

There's a brief silence in which Stein forgets to push his glasses up his nose, and they fall messily down his face.

"Oh, my." Stein replies, his words alone summoning shock, but his voice remaining curiously even and smooth. His own soul is a large, green, tilting and shuddering but ultimately stable field around which he sits. The soul in front of him is only slightly smaller; a similar shape, but where  _his_  own soul contains a sort of translucent light,  _Soul's_  soul is almost completely covered in a thick layer of black, tar-like substance.

"You see?"

Dr Stein examines it for just a moment, titillated by the thrill of new knowledge, before he switches his soul perception off to speak directly to his student.

"Quite  _profound_."

Soul then reaches his arms out, turning his right forearm into a scythe which transforms just enough to scrape along the skin of his left palm, a long scratch forming in its place. And where the skin puckers, beads of thick, blackened  _tar_  formulate instead of apparitions of liquid red.

He looks meaningfully at Stein, trying to get his point across while wiping the black blood onto his jeans. In the unlikely occurrence that Maka asks about the sticky substance on his laundry, he'll just tell her it's motorcycle oil. She'll never know the difference.

"I  _can't_  resonate with her. It will infect her. She's too… too close. These days, we Resonate at the same rate as Genie hunter every single time. And… I don't know what's happening with me."

"You still resisted, though, when the two of you tried to Resonate with Marie's healing, neutralising wavelength present. Maka was safe, no?" He says factually, carefully placing a cigarette in his mouth and leaning into his lit Bunsen burner to set the thing on fire. He'd taken up smoking again after the pregnancy-long hiatus.

_How very perceptive of the man._

"It's become an unconscious instinct, to kick her out."

" _Sub_ -conscious," Stein corrects him, cogs moving around in his brain. "These processes all happen subconsciously, because if you were truly unconscious, then they wouldn't happen…"

_Who cares?_

_Unless…_

"I have a new idea."

Soul sinks in his chair, knowing that whatever lines he had marked as uncrossable in his head, Dr Stein was completely ready and willing to absolutely destroy those lines in the pursuit of a solution.

* * *

He scuffs his boots up in the process of dragging his feet as he meanders out of Stein's office. The design of the Shibusen dungeons were clearly intended to drive prisoners completely mad, if the dim lights, echoing sounds and the constant noise of a dripping tap were anything to believe. Some part of Stein suited this place, but another part of him could probably do with being somewhere a little more like Kid's office. Organised. Homely.

Soul spies a familiar door out the corner of his eye, and something in him tells him to go through it.

He enters the room where he first met Maka, all those years ago.

He slides his fingers along the grand piano, gathering dust like a snowball against his fingertips, and flicking it onto the floor in disgust.

_So, nobody else used this room, then?_

In a way he's a little relieved. This meant that this place could remain his and Maka's, part of their story, and avoid becoming a cool hangout spot for bored students. That's what had happened to Lord Death's office, when he had passed away. Teenage weapons and meisters would go in there and look at the clouds and chat and probably eat snacks and make fun of their teachers in the breaks.

Soul was glad nothing like that could happen in here.

He sits down grandly on the piano stool, still perfectly adjusted to his height as per the last time he came in here to practice.

His fingers do the rest; fly over the ivory keys on an ebony base. An intricate harmony formulates underneath them- a version of Chopin's Revolutionary. He's been drummed into the finer points of musical theory and performance art that his brain barely has to engage at all.

When he played like this, some part of him always wants to make it darker, less harmonic; more chaotic. He gingerly pushes away that part of him and keeps playing the piece as the great Chopin had intended, without any of his particularly brand of brooding, discordant music.

He plays and plays, barely noticing that he's speeding up and playing with higher and higher intensity, his fingers slamming angrily and repeatedly against the poor, creaking keys, until eventually something takes over him.

His fingers turn sharp and scythe-like without provocation, jamming them accidentally into the piano keys.

The discomfort mixed with the immediate, hideous cacophony of noise snaps him out of it immediately.

_What the hell?_

He stares dumbfoundedly down at his hands and tugs each spiky finger painstakingly out of the instrument, one by one. The stuck, blunt noise which plays as each one loosens makes him wince.

He's just about done with the last one, still in shock, when a polite knock on the door pulls him out of his reverie and sends him into a mild state of panic.

"Uh… yeah?" he calls back, wondering who the hell is knocking while he shoves his Edward Scissorhands-esque fingers behind his back. The door creaks open slowly. A part of him experiences a sense of Déjà vu as he remembers the first time, he and Maka were introduced.

It's not Maka that interrupts, although it is another blonde female.

"Hello, Soul, I thought it would be you in here." The Intruder sends him a faint smile. "I'm so sorry for interrupting your piece. It sounded lovely." She beams as compliments roll oh so easily off her tongue.

"Thanks, Miss Marie." He gets the uncontrollable urge to fiddle with his hand, but controls the urge, keeping them safely behind his body.

"Frank said he was meeting with you. And then I heard the piece, and figured it was you. Listen, Soul. I wanted to ask you something." She closes the door behind her, and Soul gets a sinking feeling that it might be something serious. Marie clears her throat. "Frank has been… acting more than a little strange recently. I know he's been working closely with you, and I just wondered if you or Maka had noticed anything being up?"

Soul frowns.

"Weirder than usual?" he says, before tensing up, remembering that Marie and Stein were dating. "I mean, uh, you know…" he stutters, but Marie saves him.

"Don't worry, Soul." She faintly chuckles. There's an expression of worry permeating the noise. "Yes, weirder than usual. I'm just worried about him. And I don't want to scare you and Maka, I know how hard you guys work and everything," Marie seems distracted.

"He has been quite…"  _Unhinged_.  _Obsessive_. "…intense." Soul answers carefully. "About this problem me and Maka are having." Soul frowns, thinking hard about it now she mentions it. "Yes. I mean, a little. Obsessed, I guess. It reminds me of how he used to be, before he met you. It could be nothing,"

"Really?" Marie bites her thumbnail in anxiety, seeming doubtful. "It's been so stressful, the last few months. He's been so distant, and we have a new toddler," Her eyes appear to spring with tears as she seems set to go on a misplaced vent about her home life. It wasn't a huge surprise, everyone around the academy knew that despite her kind, stabilizing wavelength- Marie Mjolnir really was an emotional drama queen at times. In fact, now that Soul thinks about it, he's heard weird stories about her wandering around the dungeons late at night and looking for toilets, of all things, to destroy with her hammer.

Soul's really not in the right mindset for this, his mind is still spinning, and his back is still concealing jagged weapon-hands. Which, if he gets up to comfort her, she will get an eyeful of. He doesn't need more questions, not now. Not to mention, he's still a little freaked out by his meeting with Stein.

So that's why he says:

"Yeah, Marie. I think everything's fine. Maybe he's just been a little stressed recently because of work. I think all of us, including Kid. Maybe just speak to him, see what's up." He recommends, and then, in a vain attempt to get rid of her he follow it up with: "I've really got to practice. I've uh… got a recital in a few days. Sorry, Miss Marie." He fudges.

She narrows her eyes at him.

_Shit, was that too obvious of a lie?_

Her narrowed eyes turn to unbridled delight.

"You have a recital! That's great news! I didn't know you were playing again, Soul!" she gushes in excitement. "Oh, sorry, sorry. I should let you practice! I want you to do well in your recital," she grins, seamlessly disregarding her previous complaints as she swans out of the room and proceeds to, presumably, immediately get lost in the dungeon maze that was the Shibusen basement.

Soul's mortified realization that his web of lies might now force him to fake a piano recital sweeps over him, counteracting any feelings of relief that he managed to quickly and inoffensively get rid of the teacher.

As a result, he forgets all about what Miss Marie was trying to tell him.


	5. Chapter 5

The howling wind slaps violently through her with a chill. For once, she's glad that her hair is short because otherwise her ponytail would be whipping against her cheek. Her trench coat does little to shield her from the weather and the bottom seam dances uselessly around the ankles of her military-style trousers. For just a brief second, she senses that something is amiss in her hands and realises that that something is the feeling of cold steel gripped between her gloves.

_Forget about him. This is about you._

She chooses Hook Cemetery, for the simple reason that she was very likely to be left alone here. Especially at this hour, her only company are the dead and they certainly weren't about to rise up and interrupt her little mission in the dark.

Kicking her boots through tangled weeds which litter the floor between the graves, she stomps through to try and find an appropriate tree for her needs. Nothing too pretty; she didn't want to be a vandal. Anything too small or thin might not be a worthy adversary. She selects a tall, thick ash tree; a few metres from Lord Death's grave – she likes to visit it sometimes and she's never noticed this tree as being a particular landmark. It's perfect.

Steadying her footing and adopting a battle stance, she closes her eyes and breathes in deep. Grits her jaw; balls her fists and wills the blades to come.

_Jeez, how does Soul find this so easy?_

It takes all her effort and willpower, but after a little more concentrating and more straining than she'd like to admit – it happens. Her arm transforms in a heartbeat into the blade of a gray and slender scythe. Her eyes widen a little nervously at the sight of it. She's never quite gotten used to the idea that she's a weapon, despite having discovered the knack years ago.

_Well, she'd never needed to until now._

She jumps at the tree and tries with all her might to imagine that the towering wooden pillar in front of her in an enemy kishin, as she slashes her scythe arm backwards and forwards at the thing in a repeated motion. Each strike shoots a new mark into the wood and layer on top of each other; as if she's whittling the thing down to nothing.

_God, this is a rush._

She manoeuvres back and jumps to the other, as-yet-unblemished side of the tree, attacking at that now. She cuts mark after mark until she feels the ache of her scythe arm begging her to take a break. She breathes a frustrated sigh at herself as she stops and stands back.

_If she's gonna do this from now on, then she's going to have to get much stronger._

_After all, if Soul was going to split from her and become autonomous, then she was damned if she was going to find a new weapon to replace him. No, she'd rather fight on her own than fight with some knockoff, Soul wannabe._

The thought spurs her to slash at the tree a few more times with vengeance, her skin beginning to prick with sweat and her breathing becoming more shallow and rapid.

_This isn't enough. She needs better practice. Something dynamic._

Maka's suddenly struck with a pang of self-awareness. It makes her feel slightly foolish, battling a tree like this.

Then; in her moment of pause, inexplicably, another feeling strikes her. A feeling which sends a cold feeling rattling round her whole body like an animal trapped in a cage.

...

_Something's here._

Her senses sharpen and her skin prickles. Even more so than before, she misses the cold feel of her weapon being gripped in her hands and the security that comes with it.

_Has that been there the whole time?_

She frowns, freezing in place so that there's no noise coming from her at all except the sound of her heart pounding and the perpetual weaving of the winds. The thudding originating in her chest seems to echo through the silence of the whole graveyard, bouncing off each of the graves in unison. No sound except the wind comes from anywhere around her.

_No. Not something._

_A wavelength._

_Was someone here with her?_

"Hello?" she calls out to a landscape made of darkness. "Is someone there?  _Sid?_ " she tries, feeling like an idiot.

_No, of course it's not Sid. She'd be able to sense his wavelength a mile away._

_A kishin, then?_

She forces her mind to hone in on the wavelength. She's only caught the very edge of it, but it's enough to get a read. It's jagged, a little like Soul's but less cooperative. It's chaotic. Sinister but… there's a sense of purposeless to it. It's not familiar, yet - she can't detect any sort of immediate threat to her safety.

_Still, though. She should get out of here. This is too creepy for words._

She quickly turns off her soul perception and retracts her scythe arm with far more ease than she formed it in the first place. Her boots get scuffed and she almost trips over the weeds twice in her hurry to get out of the gated graveyard, but it doesn't cause her to slow. In fact, she finds herself speeding up to a run as her thoughts run free and her fear intensifies.

Around her, the blackness of the shadowy trees and graves slowly turn into the dim streetlights and cobbled stone housing of the city.

The spooky feeling associated with being in any cemetery for too long, let alone  _Hook_ Cemetery slowly but surely dissipates into the welcoming feeling of the streets at night.

But when she slows down into a walk to concentrate once more, she finds with an uncomfortable terror that she's still able to feel that insidious wavelength permeating the space around her.


	6. Chapter 6

The very next day, at lunchtime, seven of them sit together. The old groups gather together. Kid, Liz, Patty and Maka on one end of the large wooden table and Soul, Black*Star and Tsubaki on the other.

Black Star shovels food into his mouth; after all, they sat in the confines of the large Shibusen cafeteria; the moody lunch-ladies, the stupid nutritional posters and the hubbub of other students surround them from all angles.

They aren't totally alone, as the tables were long and designed to seat many students, so a motley crew of freshmen sit timidly at the end of their table, catching the odd glance of their famous predecessors but never quite screwing up the courage to actually talk to any of them.

Everyone pretends to not notice the student sitting by Kid who cowers away from him as if he might snap and reprimand them for sitting imperfectly, or something.

The atmosphere is palpable. Despite things somewhat improving between Soul and Maka in the last few days, the mood over all of them is a dark cloud of misery. Or at least, Soul's cloud of misery is big enough to fit all his friends. Maka's isn't much better.

"So…" Tsubaki starts, in the midst of wracking her brain to think of any topic on which they could all agree. "Looking forward to Kid's Halloween party?" she goes for, her execution weak yet persistent in the face of adversity.

Black*Star seems to be the only one who this affects, screaming at the top of his lungs about how  _his_  costume is going to be the best out of everyone, and that they would all bow to mercy from-

Okay, well, you rather get the point.

Nobody asks what Black Star is going as but when you consider that last year he actually went as  _himself,_ Soul doesn't have high hopes.

"What are you going as, Tsubaki?" Liz says amicably, as Tsubaki chews on her dry turkey sandwich which Black Star painstakingly assembled for her this morning.

Everybody pretends not to notice Maka moodily and distractedly stabbing her pasta with a plastic spork and twirling it viciously around.

"Uh, I honestly really hadn't even begun to think about it, Liz." She admits, ashamedly albeit honestly. "I might have to rehash an old costume of mine. I've had too much on my mind to consider it properly." She laughs. "Kid told me I should go as Hillary Clinton. I thought it might work, if perhaps… I could find a Bill."

Everybody pretends not to notice the way her eyes surreptitiously flicker to Black Star and back.

"Well, Patty and I are going as Thing 1 and Thing 2. You know, Dr Seuss?" she reveals, leaning back only to realise that she's sitting on a backless bench. "Kid's going to be the Cat in the Hat. I gotta say, it was tough to think of something which fitted Kid's guidelines, but I think we found the perfect costume, hey, Patty?"

Patty giggles her girlish agreement, but Kid's face betrays a tale of anguish.

"The Cat… he wears his hat all bent!" Kid wails, clawing softly at his cheeks with his fingernails which pulls his eyelids down in a grotesque fashion. "Why can't he just be more symmetrical?!"

Liz and Patty share an eye roll.

"Well. It's close enough. And the stripes will suit you, hey Kid?" she tries but fails to cheer him up.

Tsubaki moves on diligently.

"What about you, Maka?" she inquires curiously.

"I'm just going to wear a dress, probably." She answers automatically, without even look up from the large volume her nose is currently tucked into. "I could always say I was dressed as a Freudian slip!" she adds, secretly proud of herself for coming up with that on the spot.

In the distance, Black Star can be heard scoffing.

"Soul?" Tsubaki tries her hardest to include him. He does appreciate the effort, but he can't answer her without his shoulders twitching upwards into a wanton shrug.

_He's apathetic, so sue him._

Despite the fact that his friends knew well enough that they didn't get in the habit of expecting too much of him in social situations, he idly finds himself wondering if he'll have any friends  _left_  at the end of this whole ordeal.

Still, he knows he's no fun when gets like this.

"You guys are so boring," Black*Star dismisses them before making a loud farting noise with his lips. "If I keep hanging out with all of you, I'm going to need a trip to medical." He sniggers. Then takes a large bite of his juicy hamburger. "Fuck, this is so good. Why don't we eat at the school cafeteria more often?"

Everybody pretends not to notice the line of meaty-juice dribble coming from the corner of his mouth, and the barbecue sauce on his chin.

"Because,  _you speck of dust_." Liz starts condescendingly. "They never served gluten free soy organic fat-free coffee before." She wiggles her skinny soy-milk macchiato in his face.

"I don't know why you drink those." Patty interjects. "They taste like ass, and you're not even a vegan." She shrugs, taking a bite of her hot dog, mimicking Black Star but just a modicum more ladylike.

"I'm on a  _health kick_." Liz enunciates. "You two should really look at joining me." She eyes up her company derisively.

Kid pipes up. "No offence Liz, but I'm really not sure that organic soy-milk coffee is really any better for weight loss than normal, non-organic coffee. In fact, the word 'organic' doesn't really have anything to do with health. Inorganic substances are simply substances which don't contain carbon-"

He's interrupted by a long raspberry farting noise which emanates from Black*Star's general direction and is accompanied by an equally rather in-your-face thumbs down.

"I'm agreeing with you." Kid blinks at his blue-haired friend.

"In the most boring way possible."

Liz ignores Black*Star and addresses Kid's comment.

"Wait, so is carbon bad for me? Do I need to avoid foods with carbon?" she asks, earnestly in her defence.

Kid sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose.

"Everything contains carbon." He nods. "All living matter."

"Then everything is organic?" her voice raises a modicum.

Kid hesitates, and then nods.

Liz responds by slamming her hand against the table in outrage.

"Then WHY did I just pay $1.50 extra for ORGANIC COFFEE!" she throws her hands up in the air in frustration, her voice becoming a shrill wail.

"No, Liz. You… there's two different interpretations of the word…" Kid trails off a bit, when Black*Star, Patty and Liz give him equally blank looks. Tsubaki looks at Kid pityingly but keeps herself busy doing something else. "Maka, back me up here, please."

Maka sits quietly in the corner and sips her tea.

"Kid's right,  _organic_  in the context of your coffee simply means that no inorganic chemicals like fertilisers were used when growing the coffee beans or the soy plant. It has no proven extra nutritional value whatsoever." She says simply, putting an end to the whole debacle without even drawing her eyes away from her book for a second.

Hearing Maka actually string together a sentence for the first time since Stein's class causes whatever grievances Liz had two seconds ago to dissolve. She places a hand on Maka's arm.

"Hey, Maka. Are you doing ok?" she asks sympathetically and the whole tone of the table changes immediately. Soul feels his face darken and immediately begins to think of ways that he can subtly leave without anyone noticing. Unfortunately, the only one that springs to mind is one of him being swallowed by the ground itself, and that  _might just_  be noticed by his extremely perceptive company.

_Although judging by the current vibe, they would most likely all pretend not to notice it._

"Yes, I'm fine. Sorry." She apologizes. "Just nervous about this mission Soul and I have been assigned next week. Ignore me." She flushes.

Soul's not overly tempted to believe her when she states she's fine. In any other circumstance, he'd happily join her in worrying, or maybe even attempt to dismantle her fretting mind. In the current circumstance, however, he remains painfully silent.

_Stein had promised that he could sort things about between them, there was no point discussing the whole thing._

_But why did he get the feeling that there was something more insidious going on here?_

His mind flashes briefly back to his conversation with Miss Marie and ponders the fact that they're placing all their faith in the good doctor. He'd told her not to worry. And that was good advice, right?

 _Right_ , he thinks unsurely, pretending not to notice the creeping feeling of uncertainty which takes hold of his nerves.


	7. Chapter 7

Sure enough, time takes them to next week.

Along the way somewhere, Soul and Maka are assigned to comb the outskirts of the city streets to search out and defeat a one-star-kishin.

Not that kishin soul actually possessed the star-ratings of the academy. He just meant that it was a one-star mission, easy enough for any grunt to execute.

They walk side by side, barely speaking to each other whole journey. He misses traveling to exotic places to fight advanced kishin and witches, and finds his mood characteristically low as they skirt through alleyways, inwardly bemoaning his existence and presumably the academy's too.

Maka's demeanor is stubborn and still- the only exception prominent in her fidgeting, nervous, shaking hands. This isn't a trait which escapes Soul, but he thinks better of bringing it up.

The first half of mission is always characterized by a period of investigative work; soul perception- whatever you wanted to call it. Basically, finding the damn kishin. It's not exactly difficult, especially with the easy ones. They tend to wreak havoc wherever they go, and new kishin generally had zero ability to disguise their own soul wavelength. Maka's vague detection leads the two of them to some back-streets. They're only a few blocks from the Patchwork lab, to Soul's incredible disgust.

"Ugh, as if we weren't getting enough of Dr Stein already." He scoffs, looking around him at their surroundings. He gets the distinct sense that they aren't in the most illustrious part of town, judging from the lack of people-traffic and boarded up windows. Then again, living near an opportunistic surgeon with a dangerous history didn't  _scream_  primo real-estate.

They sniff through the miserable place for a few minutes, Maka's soul perception on high guard. He trudges along, hands in his pockets, behind her. In his head, he kills time entertaining himself by imagining what Maka would look like as a dog. He sees her as a loyal English setter, sniffing out every potential smell or threat and reporting diligently back to her master, like a good little submissive pet.

The irony isn't lost on him.

Her soul perception is overridden; made arbitrary when obvious visual senses appear: namely, a glowing, green figure emerging from the cobblestones a few metres ahead.

_That's a neat trick._

His hand still lurking lazily in his pocket, he transforms dutifully into her outstretched, gloved palms. She takes a second to get used to his weight and then, when the ghost-like thing in front of them takes on a tangible, physical form- they attack.

Soul feels himself flung around for a couple of seconds, effectively slicing the kishin in several equal parts; no Resonance required. It's about an easy job as he expected, and doesn't require him to be overly participatory.

It doesn't occur to either of them that it might have been a little  _too_  easy.

He doesn't transform back straight away, after all, there's some sick part of him locked away which misses and relishes the feeling of being in battle like this. That part of him basks in the feeling of being in her hands for a few more seconds than  _totally_  necessary.

While still transformed, he feels dimly in the darkness for her wavelength. He's never been a diligent soul perceiver, but he's always been able to feel hers.

There's something off about it; distant and confused.

And then: it's not. Suddenly, and without warning, her wavelength shoots waves upon waves of readiness; alertness; even fear.

"Soul, there's something else here." She grits her teeth and adopts a battle stance; feet apart. "Something bad."

_That's the first time she's really spoken to him this whole god-forsaken evening._

In the murky backdrop of this anonymous stretch of residential road, he begins to feel it too. Some sort of lurking, malevolent silhouette. It's creeping around, if not exactly hiding from the two of them. He's on guard in milliseconds, despite remaining completely unsure of what type of entity he's even supposed to be guarding  _from_.

She doesn't say anything else but makes an order, spoken passionately from her soul bond. She pushes her wavelength into his, begging,  _pleading_  non-verbally for him to just this  _one_  time, Resonate with her. He feels the familiar of tug of her soul at his, but he resists.

When he doesn't give in, she tries verbal communication.

"Soul." She addresses him. "I'm getting really shady vibes from this… thing." She articulates, her soul perception repeatedly throwing up images of twisted, sociopathic souls dancing in the shadows. Or is that just her anxiety doing the visualizing? "Please, just this once."

He hesitates.

"Maka, I can't." he says, guilt spreading up from his feet right to the tips of his fingers and threatening to envelop him completely. He tries his very best to ignore the sound of faint cackling emanating from deep within his spirit.

Maka grips him tighter as the thing senses them back, intrigue and amusement evident in its wavelength. The shadowy, disseminate figure reaches into the darkness towards them with a long and black sword unbidden in its unhinged hand, which heads straight for her.

She blocks with ease in a fraction of a second, using him in front of her face.

"Soul," she begs again, verbally, but he can't. He can't let himself.

_He can't do that to her. He doesn't know what he's capable of doing._

He squints his eyes and prepares for… for  _what_ , exactly, he's not sure. There's no way he's going to resonate at a high enough frequency with his Meister to beat this shadow, whatever it was.

She throws a few more errant blocks at the figure casting shadows over their souls, but they're both hit with the realization that it's just playing with them with these silly, childish attacks.

She gasps, feeling it alongside him.

The real weapon he's inflicting is his insidious, dangerous wavelength of madness casting all around them. What more is, it's  _intensifying_.

He's sensed Soul's weakness. is amplified; distorted; abused.

_He gets the distinct feeling that whatever they're fighting is playing with them._

"If we can just Resonate for a second, we can do this," she tries to reach him once again, never giving up. "What does he  _want_?" she whispers to herself. She can't get a proper grip with her perception, but common sense alone is enough to realize that this isn't a one-star kishin they're dealing with. "Please, you have to try."

He squints his eyes and lets her use him again to block the next few attacks. Gripping his sanity right now is akin to squeezing a wet bar of soap with two greased-up hands, but he's trying his best to keep a tighter lid on his senses as the familiar madness wavelength threatens to uproot him from the baseline.

The attacks from the crazed black sword increase in frequency, as do their blocks.

Maka blocks too slow on one side, and her punishment is a hard blow to the shoulder which causes her to yelp out in pain. She reduces herself to squatting on the ground, seeking immediate shelter behind a happenstance parked car which was unfortunate enough to get embroiled in this mess.

"Maka!" He growls, the sound of her in pain a quiet anchor to his tether on reality.

_She's hurt._

**_Let go, Soul. Let her resonate._ **

His heart leaps in terror as the croaking, velvety tones of his own inner demon fill his mind.

_You know I can't._

**_Then you'll both die._ **

The ogre taunts him at the same time that her weak soul wavelength does, wastefully seeking Resonance once again, prodding and poking at him desperately.

"Soul," she gasps for a third time, her gray sweater betraying rapidly expanding bloodstains.

_He's not sure how much more of this he can take._

She's panting and hurt. She's just defending, and they need a counter-strike. She can't summon the attacks strong enough, not without his input.

And then, without warning, whirling flames of darkness take over his vision.

The scratchy sound of a gramophone pipes up with that familiarly haunting blues record. He recognizes his unusual surroundings as the eerie setting of the Black Room.

_Why am I here?_

**_You tell me._**  The ogre he shares his mind with snarls in response, its figure taking up most of his line of immediate sight. He's bigger than ever before; definitely bigger than Soul remembers. His red mouth outstretches in a demonic, unhinged type of grin as Soul's veins burn with blood as black as soot.

 ** _Looks like you're going to resonate, like it or not._** The demon emits a low chuckle before asking his next question:

**_Are you ready for this?_ **

The ogre's mocking voice within the confines of his soul blends with a female voice in a most disturbing manner. His head whips round and his stomach does an unsettling jolt.

Maka's here.

"Soul, Resonate with me now." She says pointedly, wasting no time. "We'll be okay." She reassures him, her underlying desperation betraying her real feelings. "This thing is going to kill the both of us."

He closes his eyes, realizing that she and the ogre are in fact correct. In the Black Room, they face each other, Maka's hand on his face and wide, comforting eyes signaling her silent reassurance that they would be fine, that she wouldn't be hurt, that they could trust each other.

He stares back, each of his emotions amped up to eleven. The pressure, the madness.

_I need to do this, now._

**_You need to do this, now._ **

The ogre inside him repeats his sentence exactly back to him.

He feels it, the exact second when he loses all form of control over himself. Of course, the madness wavelength envelopes him before he gets a chance to make his decision. It doesn't matter, though, because the two moves are identical.

He finally does it, opens the floodgates to let her in.

Outwardly, his form smashes forcefully in rapid succession to witch-hunter, to genie-hunter, to  _kishin-_ hunter.

Inwardly, Maka's body slumps against the piano in quiet relief and elation that they really managed it; they finally did it.

"Thank Death, Soul." She says surely, a tidal wave of premature relief flooding her voice. "We can do this, now." Her confidence is cut off by Soul's monochrome and suddenly much more disparate presence lurking near her. "Soul...?" she murmurs in bewilderment. A few steps close the distance between them and his cold arms wrap around her waist and draw her in; his vacant stare turning into something sinister. "What are you doing?"

He tilts his head forward with a ominous smile playing on his lips. And then:

His mouth is on hers; kissing her, hard, before she can fully register what's happening.

Everything seems to happen at once. Their soul resonance goes manic. His white blade whips through the silhouette in front of them with impressive speed. Devastatingly powerful attacks slice cleanly through their enemy repeatedly, but they don't meet resistance. It's almost as if this thing's entire body is just a dense cloud of gaseous matter, the way it breaks and reforms beneath his scythe blade.

But Soul's soul isn't done, it wants  _more_. This manifestation of him that he's not in control of, not quite the madness but not quite  _him_  either, wraps his arms round her further, kissing her passionately and desperately. She kisses him back compliantly, feeling the effect on their impressive resonance. It's only slightly dampened by her perception, which ever-vigilantly detects his soul dragging her further and further down into insanity.

He pauses and removes his lips from hers for a single second. She only takes one glance at his unhinged eyes before his manifestation pushes them against the hard, dark line of the grand piano which sits ambivalently in the middle of the cacophony. His head ducks downwards and his lips switch their effort to her neck, now.

Her form shudders against him shamelessly, their demon counter-attacks on the outside effortlessly controlled through their combined consciousness. It's almost as if their physical forms cease to exist, and there's just this.

The Black Room, and the swirling insanity around them.

Black-Room Maka and Black-Room Soul.

Except it  _can't_  be him, because when she emits the slightest ounce of hesitation, his scowling, unrecognizable red-eyed manifestation just kisses her  _harder_ , his tongue commanding her mouth. It's so devastatingly pleasurable for her that she feels herself bending against this mad iron will.

"Soul…" she manages between kisses and gropes, her heartbeat speeding and slowing in response to his moves as he presses up against her. His fingers deftly slide up her waist, pushing up the hem of her sweater in the quest to touch new, exotic lands of skin. She isn't quite sure  _what_  she's trying to articulate, whether it's pain or pleasure. The two mix in so seamlessly together for her in this room, where she barely remembers the attacks she's currently making on the shadowy demon external to their bond. The Resonance becomes too much for her to keep her grip on, and it's his doing. The madness has him, totally and completely, she's now all too aware of  _that_.

She's struck by the terrifying thought that perhaps she's not totally in control of her actions, either, as her own fingers trace down his body. She finds herself unable to react to his fiery touch other than to press her body just as urgently against his, overtaken by the moment, by the insanity.

The Resonance threatens to become unhinged and remove her footing on reality too, that's how powerful it is. It slices through the air at such a ridiculous rate that her real, physical body screams out loud.

She wonders, between imminent distractions, how the thing could  _possibly_  still be alive.

It dawns on Maka with all her powers of soul perception, that despite this immense and novel level of power they're giving out, their mysterious adversary remains unphased and unharmed. In fact, the black sword which earlier was so eager to dish out attacks has completely vanished from view, and the  _thing_  several paces ahead of them is now standing still to watch them patiently and treacherously.

It's retreating.

She feels the silent force which is influencing him start to decrease; pull back.

"Soul!" she cries out, her soul finally able to send out a shockwave which reaches him.

 _Thankfully_ , the real, thinking Soul finally seems to hear this fear-tinged cry from wherever he's been locked up and becomes lucid once more. He takes one look at what his insane, madness-riddled body is doing to her.

Sheer terror flashes through his conscious eyes.

_Fuck- what am I...?_

He forces the brakes on their resonance,  _hard_ , his soul groaning and complaining in resistance but ignored by his will. Their resonance disappears in a heartbeat and the Black Room dissipates around the two of them, returning to the empty landscape of the anticlimactic street in a matter of milliseconds.

The clear air of sanity around them is jarring. He forces a transformation- which hurts him- resulting in him turning into his coughing and panting human self,; bruised and slumping onto a nearby trashcan, mind racing and yet exhausted at the same time.

They're alone.

Maka stares wide-eyed at the road ahead, pigtails slapping side to side in conjunction with her head, which is shaking in disbelief.

"I don't understand. Where did it  _go_?" she says to herself, mind reeling. "I didn't feel it's wavelength disappear. Where's the soul gone?" she says again, baffled. She stares down at her hands which clench slowly into fists before her eyes. "Did you see where it went?" she asks her present company.

He doesn't reply to her, but there's an implied 'no'.

His mind instead races with other thoughts, perhaps less pressing but more immediate to him.

_Where the hell had that come from?_

_He'd had no control over it. He barely even remembered it; just a hazy cloud of darkness while some other part of him had taken over._

She turns to stare at him, seemingly returning to the land of the living. Her expression is wary and fearful as if she's been slapped in the face, but she doesn't give anything away with her expression.

"Soul..." she says bluntly, not looking at him. "We should get back."

_Stein wasted hours drilling into them the finer points of soul theory; battle practice; chain resonance. In not one single class did any of their teachers at any point explain what you were supposed to when do the madness took over, and when you inadvertently molested your partner inside your own soul._

No, there was no easy coming back from that.


	8. Chapter 8

The walk back to the city-centre had bordered on excruciating. The tension between them had been breathable; causing him to keep his shoulders hunched and his eyes downward so as not to scare her even more.

_Idiot._

_How could he possibly begin to rectify this?_

_How does he even try?_

He ignores the sound of ogre snarls; coughs; laughs all the way back to Death City. He hears the odd taunt from beneath his soul, causing him to shove his soul even more on lockdown than usual and kicks up the pace; the light of Maka's torch cutting theatrically through the night sky.

It takes forever, what with Maka's shoulder still tender, but eventually they do reach their destination: that rickety, health and safety hazard he would call home.

"Tsubaki's back home tonight." She speaks, barely even glancing at him. "Stay here?" She adds, half a plea; half an order. He's totally powerless to resist  _either_ , so he just nods, shoves his sweaty, trembling fingers into his pockets and follows her diligently up the steps and into their old place He tails her; two metres behind, uncomfortably aware of his male, threatening presence.

She nips to the bathroom almost immediately after he opens the door, presumably to tend to her wounds. Blair is by some miracle either out prowling, or asleep somewhere, because she doesn't bother them for food or attention when they enter the apartment. He prays that she doesn't appear from thin air to pester them about their problems or beg to know why this is the first time Soul has slept in the apartment in weeks.

He dips into his bedroom and locates some adequate pyjamas; a loose-fitting grey t-shirt and some black sweats to shove on, plucking his beanie hat off his head and habitually running a shaking hand through his hair.

Now that he's alone, the ogre pipes up.

**_You assault her and now you're trying to move back here?_ **

_No, I didn't, that wasn't-_

**_Are you trying to insinuate that she liked it…?_ **

_SHUT UP, stop it, I can't-_

**_Maybe you thought she was kissing you because she wanted to? Make no mistake, Eater, she did what she did for the sake of her life._ **

_I know._

**_She won't be your partner for long if you keep showing your true potential like you did tonight-_ **

_I know-_

His soul is in the middle of a cyclical argument with itself. His own nightmare dichotomy threatens to drive him mad, when suddenly there's three abrupt raps on the thin, white-painted birch wood of his bedroom door.

_Maka._

"Uh, yeah," he calls stiffly, indicating that she could come in. She appears in his room, now in her matching shirt-and-trousers pyjamas. By her neck, he can see the corner of a white square bandage. To his surprise, she's holding out a glass of milk in an outstretched arm for him to take. He stares at the thing, nonplussed.

"I know how you like to drink milk late at night." She explains. When he doesn't make any indication of getting up from his bed towards her to claim the beverage, she places it awkwardly on his dresser. "Well… if you decide that you want it, it's right here."

"Maka." He says expressively. "I'm sorry." he articulates softly, unsure of where else to go from there. His head lulls backwards and he lets it softly whack against the headboard behind as he winces, his eyes closed with keen regret. "I'm just…" he trails off, directionless. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

_For crossing every boundary imaginable._

He remains silent, and Maka moves forward to take up seating in the small space on his bed which his body is not currently occupying.

She says nothing, her head falling effortlessly against his shoulder subtly searching for his heartbeat with her ear like the medic she is. He doesn't move a muscle, but one eye creeps open to watch her carefully. He lazily observes her as she places her hand on his chest, feeling around the thin cotton of his t-shirt for his long, puckered scar tissue.

_Is she aware she's cuddling him?_

There's so much he needs to say, but he can't. His mind chokes up at the mere thought of spilling what's going on in his soul, so when she starts to speak to him, he listens.

"I don't blame you, Soul. I know what happened there wasn't your fault." She starts. "I get it. This is what you've been trying to  _protect_  me from. That… madness."

His other eye opens too, and he regards her coolly. She continues. "But- our Resonance was so  _strong_. We might even be able to harness this and-" she's cut off.

"No." he shakes his head.

Annoyance flashes through her facial features.

"Soul, we can figure this out! This is  _us_ ," she points out.

" _We_  can figure it out?" his eyes narrow in a second of self-hatred, stressing the first word of his sentence. "Seems to me this is  _my_  problem."

Maka bites her lip; feeling wave after wave of unsureness and anger emanating from their bond, which is still weakly persisting despite this.

"Soul…" she says, searchingly. "I trust you." She settles for.

"Don't," he growls. She disregards this. "Not after tonight."

"That wasn't  _you!"_  she splutters.

"It doesn't matter!" he growls. "It might as well have been, because I couldn't  _control_  it." he hesitates, growling. "What the  _hell_  was that thing, anyway?"

She tenses with fear.

"It was testing you." She whispers through his shirt fabric. "It was seeing how far it could push you. Us." She closes her eyes. "I've felt it before."

_Well, that was news to him._

"What?"

"I was at Hook last week… trying out a…uh, a new move." She confesses. "I felt it then, the same wavelength. It didn't try to hurt me, though."

"You're sure it was the same thing?" he replies, deciding not to explore the former part of her sentence. "Kid will want to know." He adds.

"Soul…" she starts saying something, but clearly thinks better of it and snaps out of it. "We'll… we'll tell him tomorrow, okay? I'm too tired, now." She affirms her point by stifling a yawn, then adds: " _We're_  going to get through this… whatever it is." She whispers.

_Well, that was hardly comforting._

They stay silent and still for the longest time, listening to the clock softly tick the minutes as they go by. After twenty or so, he realises with some surprise that she's actually fallen asleep. Her chest rises and falls steadily as he gazes down at her sleeping figure.

Not for the first time, he's struck by feelings of inadequacy.

_How could she forgive him, just like that? Act like none of it happened, and sleep like it was no big deal?_

He carefully manoeuvres her so she's lying down in a slightly more comfortable position. He happily relinquishes his bed for the night, knowing that he's unlikely to get any sleep.

_His bed smelled of Tsubaki's cloying perfume, anyway._

He wanders to their sitting room, his mind still adrift with thoughts of abject shame, fear, and the inconvenient memory of what it felt like to kiss her. He stares pensively out the window.

Above him, the falcate moon hangs lowly in the night sky and convulses, as usual, with a hideous guffaw.

_At least someone found this funny._


	9. Chapter 9

Stein wasn't having the best of evenings.

Aside from the pile of marking-from-hell that sits on his desk and silently taunts him, there had been something else. Something just…  _irregular._ A feeling, maybe? He can't concentrate on his work, and as a result, the work just taunts him harder.

He'd felt pretty ropey all day; hell, all week. The giant screw in his head had found itself being turned and turned without much joy, and it didn't exactly help things that he was stuck all day isolated like a caged baboon with nothing to keep him company except his thoughts.

Even they weren't your friendly neighborhood thoughts at the best of times.

Something was off in the air tonight.

He leans back thoughtfully in his desk chair, absently placing a cigarette into his mouth. The lighter comes next, the quiet fizz and click igniting the tip into a blaze of smoking red. He doesn't put the flame out, instead keeps his thumb on the button.

A force that he's not fully conscious of beckons him to pick up the closest sheet of paper to him- a scrawled page of notes on Soul and Maka's case. His bespectacled eyes dance around the words he'd written just a few days prior.

_ALBARN/EVANS_

_No resonance:_

_EAT class, uneven wavelengths. Grigori and black blood. Communication issue._

_History of black blood/madness? Culprit likely Soul_

_Possible reassignment- pending results of experimentation_

The writing thereafter devolves into a series of planned experiments. The majority of them had a big scrawled 'FAIL' after them, as once again he hadn't been able to resonate. He'd found his efforts compounded by Soul's egregious failure to disclose whatever it was he knew, and Maka's grating need to be open and frank about every little thing.

_Small wonder they ever partnered._

Stein rips out the page with a quick hand and places it underneath the flickering flame of his lighter. The pyromaniac in him gazes in admiration, watching the orange slowly lick black marks at the pure white paper, eventually turning it into dust.

He draws in a protracted breath from his cigarette and watches the smoke curl interestingly out from the end.

The vague buzzing in his mind seems to respond; amps up a notch.

Out of the blue, he impulsively places the tip of the flame down on the desk, ever so slightly touching the corner of his pile of marking.

The fire reacts almost immediately, spreading quicker than he intended and becomes large. A stray moment of sense seems to grip the professor and he tears off his white lab coat, throwing it over the fire he caused. Sheets of semi-burned paper go flying across the room and float gently towards the floor in disorganized chaos.

The noise gets louder still.

His eyes flash, staring at the mess he's created on his desk.

_What's happening with you, Franken?_

Inside his mind there now undeniably exists a cacophonous jangle of white noise, buzzing louder and louder as a host of voices with seemingly contradictory goals clamber through the mess of imagined sound.

Some scream at him to burn up the whole place, some are taunting and laughing about his current state. Others are sadder, disappointed; mentions of Marie and his child…

He clutches the sides of his head as if the last thought causes him physical pain, and he staggers quickly out from his office and to a nearby bathroom where he lurches against the sink. Looking up, he stares daggers at his own reflection in the grimy bathroom mirror.

_Get a grip, Franken._

He repeats his name in his head over and over again, stares hard at his reflection and tries to ground himself in reality.

He only tears his vision away when he sees his reflection smile back at him, starting off with a low chuckle that soon erupts into a full-fledged shriek of laughter. His reflections shoulders visibly wrack with the sound.

Or was that him?

It was beginning to get difficult to tell the difference between the two.

He smashes his fist into the two-dimensional laughing stock and sends it shattering into a million pieces. If it made any noise, Stein's ears are too busy buzzing with imaginary sound to register it. He doesn't register any feeling in his hand, either, but a glance to fists reveals his blood dribbling down his fragment-studded knuckles.

He staggers back a few paces, clutching a lethal-looking piece of mirror in his spare hand.

_When did that get there?_

Among many, one voice becomes prominent in his mind and soon its pressing agenda becomes his own.

_There's someone in your house. Someone's here._

With a grim snarl, he clutches the shard of mirror tighter in his hand and follows this instinct, his steps zig-zagging and teetering side to side as he walks around back to his office.

Through all of this, his soul senses it too. Something foreign,  _here_.

He can't help but grin madly at the thought of killing it and dissecting it, whatever it was.

_Its not in the basement, it's upstairs._

This is how he climbs the metal, clanging steps up to the ground level- a rictus grin planted on his face, blood spots dripping down from his limp hand in uneven lines and marking his path. His pulse quickens as he hears footsteps just two rooms away from him and he quickens his pace.

The voices scream louder;  _louder_ as he rounds the corner into his kitchen and sees the moving of shadows, betraying the shape of their owner…

He prepares himself to attack but the owner of the shadow steps into vision and freezes him in place.

The shard of mirror clatters uselessly to the floor as his company looks on with an expression of sheer horror.

 _Marie_.

She screams his name as his legs give way and he goes the same way as the mirror shard; slumping on his knees to the floor with his head lulling into his hands to hide his tormented expression.

"Franken!" she screams, placing the toddler clutching onto her arms down with haste. "I'll be right back," she tells him worriedly; places him down in the kitchen and shuts the door, protecting his young eyes from whatever is outside. There, she rushes to her partners side. "Franken, what's going on?" she shakes his shoulders, voice verging on total panic.

The noise quietens down, and he begins to hear himself think again.

_What was I about to do?_

"S-something's not right with me, Marie," he stutters, looking up at her in bewilderment. His bleeding knuckles advertise his point. "My head. It's not right."

"What is it? What's wrong?" she persists.

"I don't know. Feels like… madness…" he chokes out.

He effectively voices her recent concerns, but she's far from being vindicated. Her hands fly to mouth as her heart and stomach drop a million miles. In the kitchen, Clarence must sense their strained wavelengths, because he starts to wail.

Suffice to say it, Stein  _really_  wasn't having the best evening.


	10. Chapter 10

She wakes up at the crack of dawn; feeling a soft fluffy paw bat her repeatedly in the face.

When Blair woke up, all her friends had to wake up too.

"Ugh, Blair, what time is it?" she groans as the feline form of their housemate bops her on the nose a few times. Maka opens one eye to peer at her digital alarm clock. She's surprised for half a second when she sees Soul's analog alarm on the side, indicating that it's five minutes to six.

She realizes with a start that she's fallen asleep in his bed.

"Nya~ you're in Soul-kun's bed," Blair states the obvious, leaping off Maka's face as a courtesy but accidentally pressing a paw into her injured shoulder.

"Gah!" Maka yelps in pain, her hand flying to the offended spot. "Be careful, Blair." She scolds.

"I'm sorry, Maka-chan~" Blair pouts. "I didn't realize."

It was hard to stay angry at Blair when she was in her cat form like this. Maka always had a soft spot for kitties. She sits up and scratches the beast behind the ears, considering her current bedding situation.

It's not that much of a surprise, really. It had happened a few times before, after particularly exhausting missions. The two of them would collapse into blissful sleep anywhere they found. She remembers with some amusement that once, Soul had fallen asleep in the bath. He'd woken up 2 hours later and his entire body had closely resembled a prune.

Her brain must be tired or something, because it takes her this long to even register that Soul's not here.

_Where is he?_

_He better not be in my bed, that idiot._

Blair seems to sense Maka's obvious confusion, because she offers an explanation.

"Soul-kun left at about 3am. I was just coming back, so I saw him." Blair purrs. "Hey, do you think he's got a secret girlfriend?" her eyes turn wide with wonderment.

Maka frowns, ignoring that.

"He left…?" she repeats.

_That wasn't like him._

"He didn't look very happy… he didn't even give me a belly-scratch," Blair notes, with disappointment. "Did something happen last night?"

She swallows, not sure what she should say.

_What was the most noteworthy thing that happened last night?_

_We fought a kishin, but it got away._

_The insanity wavelength is back, even after Asura had been killed._

_Soul had kissed her. Death, and she'd kissed him too. Well, it had been in his mind; technically. But it had definitely felt real._

An unidentified feeling shoots through her spine and extends to her fingertips.

Maka's face must burn red like the fire of a thousand suns, because Blair suddenly transforms into her scantily-clad human form and peers over Maka, suspicious.

"You're blushing~" she taunts, poking one perfectly manicured black nail at Maka, who groans.

"I'm not!" she exclaims, having heard this all before. "Death, Blair. Not  _this_ , again. Please! Soul and I are just  _partners_ ,"

Blair sighs.

"Alright, alright. Keep your secrets then, little girl~" she retracts her accusatory finger, raising an eyebrow. "Blair-sama will find out eventually!" she shrugs, absently fiddling with her black skirt.

Maka stands up too and makes a half-hearted effort to make the bed behind her. She straightens out the sheet a little, but gives up after a minute or so.

_Oh, who cares. It's always messy, anyway._

_She has bigger concerns. And one of them is getting ready for school._

"Oh. And, um~" Blair begins, a little tensely. "I would avoid going into the living room," she adds, biting her lip in a way which hints that she would suggest doing the opposite.

"The living room? What's going on in the living room?"

She storms out through the hall thunderously to get a look at what Blair's talking about.

"Nya! Don't tell me I didn't warn you~" Comes the cats teasing reply.

* * *

Fast forward an hour. Maka's sitting on her own in class.

She checks the time, for the fourth time in that hour. Her eyes dart nervously to and from the classroom door.

No sign of Soul, and no sign of the professor.

A few rows in front, Maka notices Black Star whispering something to Tsubaki and doing a little jig. He's no doubt overjoyed that they don't appear to have a teacher today.

Maka leans forward and prods him on the back.

"Hey, have you seen Soul today?" she hisses. "He didn't go to yours late last night, did he?"

Tsubaki and Black Star share a confused look.

"No…" she says slowly. "He's not at yours? I thought you guys might have made up again, since we hadn't heard from him. How did the mission go? Are you… hurt?" she asks, spotting the corner of Maka's bandage.

"I'll tell you about the mission later," she says pointedly to Tsubaki, implying that Black Star would not be privy to that information. "Yeah, just a clip on my shoulder. It'll be fine." She motions vaguely to it. She's had worse, and she'll have worse again.

"So- where's Soul?" Black Star frowns. "If he's bunking without me, I'm gonna be pretty pissed." Black Star cracks his knuckles.

Maka rolls her eyes.

"I don't  _know_  where he is, that's my point." She bites her thumbnail nervously. "Blair said she saw him leaving our place at 3am, after the mission. And when I woke up this morning- well, he obviously hadn't been too happy."

Tsubaki frowns.

"What do you mean, Maka?"

"Well, he sliced up half our couch cushions, for one thing! And Blair said he was in a bad mood, too." She discloses.

"Did something happen on the mission? Did you catch the kishin?" Black Star pipes up, still eavesdropping. "Is my buddy hurt?!" he leaps up from where he's sitting. "DON'T WORRY MAKA!" his voice crescendos into an abrasive yell.

"He's fine." She relays, remembering that despite his mannerisms, Black Star had a loyal and caring side. "But there was something else… it got away." she shakes her head. "I've arranged a meeting with Kid and Asuza this morning to brief them about all of this."

"If only I'D been there, then the kishin would NEVER have got away! You all just need more of  _me_  in your lives," Black Star suggests, helpfully. Tsubaki shushes him and takes a more sympathetic approach.

"Maybe that's what he was upset about?" Tsubaki suggests, kindly. "I'm sure it's nothing to do with you,"

_I doubt it._

She doesn't agree or disagree, just shrugs dispassionately.

"Hey… speaking of missing people." Black Star says again. "Where the hell is-"

At that moment, the young boy's speech is cut off as the door to their classroom opens with a creak, and Spirit steps through. He coughs twice, and the room falls silent. There's a mood of confusion as people wonder where their usual teacher was, and why it had taken the school fifteen whole minutes to conjure a substitute.

"Boys and girls," he starts. Maka shudders theatrically at the sound of her father's voice. "There won't be any classes with Professor Stein today." He tells them factually. "He's… sick. I would usually substitute, but I have some urgent matters to attend to in the running of Shibusen."

Excited muttering breaks out across all rows.

"Is he okay?"

"No classes! WOO!"

"I wonder what's going on?"

"That sounds suspicious…"

The mutterings represent a diversity of interests, but Spirit once again coughs to get their attention.

"Could my lovely precious  _daughter_  please also report to Kid's office immediately?" his sombre expression turns into a tone of glee.

Oh  _brother_.

Maka hears the giggles of her classmates around her as the class packs their things away. Black Star is scratching his head and Tsubaki glances at Maka.

"I wonder what they want to see you about?" says Tsubaki. "I hope it's nothing to do with Soul not being here." She says, meaning that she hopes he's not in trouble for truancy. Maka's mind flits to worse.

_Wait, what if that's it?_

_What if he's run off and gotten himself hurt?_

A terrifying thought occurs.

_What if it was that same demon?_

Her books tumble from her hands and smack to the floor as she takes off in a sprint down the corridor. Black Star and Tsubaki stare after her, nonplussed.

"I don't know what she's got her panties in a twist about. If something happened to Soul, they'd have told me first. After all, I'm his best friend!"

"Still." Tsubaki looks on, worriedly. "We should go too, to make sure she's alright."

"Hah!" Black Star chortles. "You can! I'm going to enjoy my free period, as God intended!"

* * *

She's a little out of breath by the time she gets to Kid's office, which was conveniently located on the opposite side of the academy.

Usually, she'd knock but in her haste she forgets her manners and barges straight in.

From the looks of things, she appears to have interrupted a pretty heated discussion between Kid and Professor Stein. The twins stand either side of Kid, looking every bit the tough Brooklyn sisters they're made out to be. On Stein's side, Marie stands in the corner and wrings her hands.

They all turn to their new company, and Maka coughs.

_What the hell was this Mexican standoff?_

"Uh… my father said you asked to see me, Kid." Her eyes travel to her professor. "Dr Stein? I thought you were sick," she frowns, confused.

_Was this about Soul or not?_

"Please, come in." Kid responds, stretching out one gloved hand and indicating that she should enter. She gets the feeling like she probably should have knocked, but Kid's too polite to turn her away now.

She's not sure which side of the standoff to join, so she awkwardly hovers near the door.

"Maka… I called you here to discuss the mission. However, some new information has come to light. We thought it pertinent to let you know about some recent… developments." Kid clasps his hands together in perfect symmetry. "Professor Stein will no longer be having extra sessions with you and Soul…" Kid trails off. "Where is Soul?"

Maka bites her lip.

"I don't currently know."  _So it wasn't about him_. "What's going on? Why are we stopping the extra lessons?" she asks.

Kid glances hesitantly at the professor.

"Professor Stein had… an incident." He says subtly. Liz winces at his clinical wording.

Maka shakes her head like it couldn't possibly matter.

"Kid, I have something important to tell you. Last night- on our mission. After we completed it, we saw something else." She says, pausing for dramatic effect. "It attacked us... but it was too powerful. We couldn't kill it, and it got away."

"A kishin, you mean?"

"I don't know, Kid, it had these insane wavelengths. It was able to manipulate Soul's black blood; something weird happened. It was almost like with Asura," she whispers the word as if it's a curse.

The professor freezes still, as does Marie.

"Did you say it's wavelengths were manipulating Soul?" the Doctor asks, craning his neck round curiously.

"Yes, it made him go crazy. He left last night, after we got back. I haven't seen him since." She replies, biting her lip and refusing to go into more detail. She's struck by five very shocked face, and wonders what's with the questions. "Do you guys know something about this?"

Marie looks oddly… relieved.

"Franken, did you hear that? It's not you, it's something else." She repeats what Maka's just said, and then turns to the girl herself. "Where were you?"

Maka begins to get a clue.

_So something happened to Stein last night, too? Weird._

"We were… on the streets. A few blocks from Patchwork…"

"Then it's the same thing! The same thing affected Soul and Stein last night! You said you fought this thing?" Marie jumps up, suddenly animated. Stein stares her down, dubiously and Kid watches the whole thing unfold, stumped.

Maka nods, a little dumbstruck.

"So, you believe that this force that you say you fought last night… emitted a certain wavelength?" he asks tentatively.

"How else can you explain it?! Something's manipulating them." Marie retorts.

Kid scratches his head.

"But we haven't heard any other reports of anything odd happening."

Liz and Patty share a look, and decide now is the time to butt in.

"Kid… no offence, but you weren't exactly yourself last night either." She references an incident in the prior evening in which Kid had spent two hours trying to organize their trash. Excessive, even by his standards. "Maybe there's something to this. Kid, we know you're not as affected by the madness as Soul or the professor," she explains. "We learned that when we beat Asura." She adds. "Maybe whatever messed with Soul and Stein had an effect on you, too."

The room turns to stare at Liz in surprise, unused to hearing such rationality from the girl. Kid considers this. After a second, he turns to Maka.

"You said Soul was affected. How so?" he inquires.

Maka's face threatens to turn the very same shade of red that it did this morning.

"Um." She starts well. "He just, um, he was very rash. He didn't seem like himself." She explains poorly, then remembers the trick she's got up her sleeve. "Also, I could sense it, with my Soul Perception."

Kid nods.

_Phew._

_Telling her boss, two teachers and two of the worst gossips in Nevada that she and Soul made out last night was not currently high on her priority list._

"You said that it was powerful?" he checks.

"Yeah, really powerful. Even with kishin-hunter, it was just playing with us. It wasn't trying to kill us- just test how far it could drive Soul… and me."

Stein emits a small noise of surprise. "You were able to perform kishin-hunter?" he asks.

"Yes. Soul and I resonated at a higher frequency than ever." She admits. "I… I think that the black blood helped."

_Classic black blood. Gives you insane levels of power but leaves you unable to control it._

"That's… so very interesting." Stein replies.

Kid clears his throat and starts with the mumblings of a solid plan.

"We'll have to assemble a task force to assess the threat. The rest of you- you'll hear from me in due course." He pauses. "Professor Stein." he addresses the doctor directly. "I think that it's best if you stay away from this, considering the circumstances. Soul, too. We don't know what could happen if you two get drawn into fighting a being with this kind of influence," he says sensibly.

"It could result in more casualties," Marie agrees, and Stein nods a little distractedly.

_Was Maka going mad too, or was Stein's head just not on straight today?_

"Should we continue the sessions with Professor Stein…? In the meantime?" she asks, standing up to leave. She gets the feeling that she's in the middle of some sort of dispute. Besides, she needs to find Soul.

Kid looks hesitant.

"While I contact the necessary people and we form a sort of plan… no, I don't feel that it's wise to be participating in such risky experiments in light of the current… circumstance." He finishes curtly. "I'm sorry, Maka. In the meanwhile, I have some business to attend to with Professor-" he starts, but she's one step ahead of him.

"Thank you." she cuts him off, heading out and stepping into the long stretch of hallway with an overdue sigh. The door shuts heavily behind her, and conversation resumes.

She's honestly quite relieved, despite the situation. Things were awkward enough between her and Soul without a repeat of last night's weird in-soul experience. Plus- and it's just a feeling, but- something about the way Stein looks today is just rattling her.

Although, she should probably let Soul know what's going on. She's struck with feelings of sympathy for her poor weapon and an overwhelming need to tell him that it wasn't his fault; that there's some sort of influence. It's not just him it's affecting.

At a certain point, it might even be good for the two of them to  _talk_  about what happened, much as the thought of that makes Maka want to run 3000 miles.

_She's just got to find him, first._


	11. Chapter 11

In her defense, Tsubaki really had meant to go after Maka. The problem was that she sometimes cared a little  _too_  much.

She had begun to walk the long, winding path to Kid's office, but on her way there she had been struck by how beautiful the stained-glass windows along the hallway had been; admired the way the sun had a way of striking the colorful glass just the right way and painting intricate, luminous patterns on the otherwise dull marble flooring. She liked the scenery of the DWMA when it was empty, like this. There was a studious feeling in the air.

And then, of course, she had noticed a slight flaw in the pattern. An object; out of place. A silhouette where there should have been a perfect orange panel.

Of course she noticed, she was a Nakatsukasa. She was born of generations of ninja-weapons. Being able to spot a single flaw in a mile of evidence was etched into her DNA. Nothing escaped her.

Her pretty bright eyes shine inquisitively.

_Who was sitting on their own out there?_

She decides that she'll check on them quickly, and then she'll afterwards catch up with Maka.

_She's probably still in her meeting, anyway._

She retraces back a few paces to the side door, to get out on the balcony and pushes it open gently. Her heart races suddenly as she sees a lone figure dangling precariously off the edge, in the distance.

"S-STOP!" she calls, suddenly stuttering, running towards them.

The albino-haired culprit whips his head round, agitated by the sudden noise. His spooked expression turns to ambivalence as he spies who the interloper is.

"Tsubaki? What are you doing here?" he asks.

"Soul!" she catches up to him, panting a little from the worry rather than the exertion."I thought you were someone about to jump off the edge!" she exclaims, before narrowing her eyes. "You're not, though, right?" she double-checks, just for posterity.

"No." He scoffs.

Up closer, she notices how rough he looks. Fatigue creates dark rings on his eyes, and the onset of a 5'o clock shadow scaffolds his jaw. His hair is a little unkempt, and he doesn't appear to have slept. She's struck with an errant thought:

_Why doesn't Black Star ever grow a beard? He'd look more grown-up. It could suit him!_

"You look a little tired, Soul. What's going on? Maka said you were missing this morning." She hoiks herself up so she's adjacent to him and realizes that there's actually a hidden layer of bricks jutting out from the under the wall which would have prevented him from falling.

Soul kicks his heels with blatant frustration.

"It's fine." He says dispassionately.

She doesn't seem too bothered by his abruptness, because she understands he has trouble talking about his feelings sometimes.

_Let's try something else._

"Have you and Maka sorted out your argument?" she asks, probing gently.

"I don't want to talk about it." He frowns, still not looking at her.

She smiles kindly.

"Of course." she nods, understandingly. Because she's Tsubaki; she understands. "Your stubble really suits you, by the way," she compliments him because he looks down, and she thinks he probably needs it.

He's caught off guard. "Oh." He reaches up and wantonly strokes the offending stubble. "Uh, thanks. I would usually shave, but I haven't really been home," he answers. She nods enthusiastically. Probably more enthusiastically than the statement warranted. "I could probably do with a shower, too." He comments of himself drily, making a face.

"Ah, well. You know, if you don't want to go home, you could always shower in the Shibusen locker rooms!" her eyes sparkle as she delivers the tip. "I sometimes do, when I want a little more privacy. Black Star… isn't always the best roommate for having a lot of privacy." She says dubiously, her eyes crinkling with an escaped giggle.

"Yeah, I learned that recently." He chuckles too, smiling goofily into the middle distance. "Bet having Maka was like a dream come true, huh?"

Tsubaki nods in agreement. "It  _was_  a refreshing change! But, living with anyone has its ups and downs, don't you think?" she asks innocently. "Me, for example. Sometimes I can be a bit of a nag about recycling! It drives Black Star nuts. He loves to throw paper straight out!" she rolls her eyes good-naturedly. "And in the same way, sometimes Maka can take her emotions out on the people she loves."

Soul's eyebrow twinges upwards curiously.

_So, that caught his attention, then._

"She  _can_  be a moody cow." He agrees a little harshly, now turning his head to meet eyes with his companion. "Although, I had assumed that she reserved that for me. And Spirit, obviously." He adds, with just a hint of questioning in his tone.

_He's asking me if Maka's ok._

Tsubaki takes a few seconds to think.

"Sometimes Maka can have trouble understanding people's motives… when they're aligned with different values than her own." She replies, stringing her sentences together with care. "For example, she often questions me as to why I put up with Black Star all the time. She doesn't understand why or how somebody would want to partner with such a…  _strong_  personality, because she doesn't enjoy being challenged."

"What do you tell her?" Soul wonders aloud.

"I tell her that I enjoy being partnered with Black Star. I believe in him, and I see the best in him." She doesn't hesitate. "But Maka doesn't understand, because she doesn't see the world the same way as me."

"So she's a stubborn beast," Soul makes a face. "Although, I might have to agree with her on that one." Tsubaki laughs lightly. Against his better judgment, Soul gets drawn into Tsubaki's hypothesis. "Okay, I'll bite. Why is Maka recently so  _pissed_  at me?"

Tsubaki bites her lip.

"I really shouldn't have gotten involved…" she starts, but Soul shakes his head.

"Too late." He contradicts.

Tsubaki takes a pensive inhale before answering. "I think she'd like you to be a little more… forthcoming. She finds it frustrating, when you keep things from her. It's healthy for a weapon and meister to share things with one another." She replies, truthfully.

Soul shoves his hands in his pockets, expecting as much.

"Yeah, well. It doesn't really matter now, anyway." He drawls, his eyes drawn back out to the overview of the city ahead of them. He frowns to beat away the burning sun in his eyes, and he frowns harder because its October, and what the hell right did the sun to be so bright?

"It still matters, Soul." Tsubaki puts a hand on his arm. "Whatever has happened, you and Maka will be  _fine_. I really believe that." She's telling the truth, but she still tries hard to sound genuine.

He's not entirely sure what possesses him to tell her. Perhaps it's a heatstroke, from sitting out here all day. Perhaps it's the knowledge that gossip in Death City spreads like wildfire anyway, and it was a matter of time before she knew. Perhaps he wants to challenge her, to surprise her somehow; stop her from telling him things he already knows.

Either way, it's deeply uncool.

"What if I kissed her?"

He's painfully aware that he sounds like some sort of awful pre-teen drama novella, but  _dammit_ , this is his life.

To her credit, Tsubaki doesn't react much outwardly. Her eyelashes flutter a few times in quick succession, and she cocks her head.

"Do you think that will change anything between the two of you?" she asks. He's gratefully relieved that she doesn't hound him for more information, but of course she didn't. She's Tsubaki; she understood people's boundaries.

"I don't know. Probably." Soul scratches his stubble. "It wasn't really  _me_." He attempts to explain. "The, uh. The black blood kinda took over." He's aware that it sounds like he's making excuses now, but if Tsubaki doesn't believe him, she doesn't show any signs of it.

_Black Blood? So there's something else going on, here. She'll note that one down for later._

"How have things been since?" she tries.

"Weird." He answers definitively. "She just… she was fine with it. She forgave me." he kicks his heels against the wall again. "Said she 'understood' it wasn't me." His scowl deepens.

_She censors herself before she's about to ask what the problem is. He'd probably just clam up if she oversimplifies it too much._

_This is Soul we're talking about, not Black Star._

"You're worried it was." She states, more than asks.

He doesn't reply, but his dejected body language is more than enough for her to understand.

"Soul, you know that you need to talk to her." Her voice comes gentle as she appeals to his better side, his more communicative side. "You need to tell  _her_ , not me. I know that she'll understand. All she wants is for you to try." she finishes with an empathetic smile. Soul considers her advice for a second.

"I try." He answers, truthfully for him anyway. "I try hard, actually."

"She wants you to try doing things  _her_  way. Talking it out. Opening up." She explains immediately.

"There's so much other stuff going on." He plucks an excuse lazily from thin air. "It would seem stupid, and childish."

"What other stuff?"

"Like, for one - this kishin we fought last night. It's still out there, and apparently it can… it can manipulate my black blood. Y'know, insanity wavelength. So that's a whole lot of fun we've gotta deal with." He explains further. "And then, I mean, where do I start?  _Jesus_ , our whole job is life or death."

_Huh. The kishin manipulated his Black Blood trait? And he said it's still at large. Pieces are starting to fall together…_

_Again, she stores it away for future use._

"All the more reason to talk to her!" she says, moving back to her previous argument. "Soul… all those things you listed – you know you'll be far better equipped for them if you and your Meister understand each other." Her face turns thoughtful. "Black Star and I often have short periods of Resonance troubles, you know." There's a brief silence, and she's guessing Soul already knew that. He's friends with Black Star, after all. "Before a big battle, sometimes he can become hard to read. It's like he isolates himself, preparing himself for what's about to happen."

"How do you deal with it?"

"We  _talk_." She answers simply. "It may surprise you, but Black Star acts totally differently when it's just the two of us."

_She remembers that Maka has often said the same of Soul._

"Huh." He replies, stoutly. He doesn't elaborate further, but something appears to have clicked in his head. She appears to have changed his mind.

"Everything okay?" she wonders.

"I guess…. I guess I should go and find her then, I guess." He surprises her.

Tsubaki's face breaks out into a pleased smile, before she suddenly remembers the reason she came here at all.

_Oh no, Maka!_

_She was so busy trying to get Soul to talk to her, that she forgot about trying to get Maka to talk to her!_

_Oh well. Maybe one was as good as the other? Still, she hoped the girl was ok._

_Especially since it seemed that their mission had been particularly rough…_

The pair of them twist round and step off the balcony edge in unison. Tsubaki brushes a little stone dust off her white dress.

"I was actually just on my way to find her, when I stumbled across you. I think she's just in a meeting with Kid, but I'm not sure how long it will take. We could go together and see if she's still there, if you like?" Tsubaki offers warmly, making a move to follow Soul as he departs, but he shakes his head.

Tsubaki's cleverer than she lets people think, Soul realizes. In one conversation she'd managed to find out about the mission, about Maka, and the kissing. He makes a mental note that he should be more on guard around her- the girl had barely flashed a  _smile_  and he had told her everything.

Well, he still had one trick up his sleeve.

"Thanks, but I think I probably need to speak to her by myself." He gives her an apologetic look. "You know how it is. Gotta go tell my  _Meister_  how I  _feel_." He continues, his mouth curling upward in a strange look.

"I get it, Soul. Good luck!" she calls, a little confused by how out of character he's suddenly acting.

"I would suggest one thing, though."

"Hm?"

"I think that you should take your own advice, in future." He flashes her his teeth in a quick smirk, before taking off in the opposite direction and leaving her flustered in his wake.

Tsubaki's body freezes in surprise as his meaning clicks, and her entire face flushes involuntarily with embarrassment. When the initial shock wears off, she stares thoughtfully after his diminishing figure in the distance.

_Touché, Soul._

* * *

At the other end of campus, Black Star plods along the marble hallway, his thick brown steel-capped boots scuffing along the floor as he does so. He realizes with a start that he's damaging his shoes and switches up his walking to the exact opposite; lifting his knees up high and triumphant with each step. Then; lifting the steel toes in his boots becomes too troublesome and he reverts back to shuffling.

From the look of it, you would never believe that he's one of the most accomplished technicians at the academy.

A few times he alternates between the two, absently whistling as he inadvertently looks like an utter madman clonking down the hallway. He's blissfully ignorant of the bizarre stares he receives from a few NOT class students who are late to class.

"Hurry along to class!" he points down the hall with a goofish smile on his face. "You need to learn so you can be strong and powerful, like me!" he tells them, his intentions golden but his execution poor.

The two girls look blankly back at him.

"But… we're NOT students…" one of them tries, but Black Star's already plodded too far away to be listening.

He's got a goal in mind, and that goal was to find his weapon, and assist her in comforting Maka. When Tsubaki had first asked him to go with her, he'd figured he probably had better things to do. But then he'd thought about it: with his buddy Soul nowhere to be found, everyone being in a bad mood and Tsubaki off somewhere else… what else was there to do?

He'd tried Kilik, first of all. There was no way he was going to spend his free period hanging out with Ox or even worse,  _Harvar,_ so Kilik had been the obvious first option. But that hadn't lasted long, namely because Pot of Fire and Pot of Thunder were currently going through their obnoxious tweenaged years.

_He misses when Kilik's duo of Earth Shaman used to be cute and Chibi. As a pair of 12 year olds, they totally stole his thunder._

_Literally, in the case of one of them._

He'd excused himself semi-politely and then wandered the hallways dejectedly for a couple minutes. His boredom, and tingling sense that something interesting might happen had of course, led him to his current activity of choice, which is shuffling/high kneeing it to Kid's office.

He eventually does arrive, and when he does he's met by a curious sight.

Maka stands a few paces from the door, eyes closed and her forehead leaning against the wooden panelled wall to one side. He quirks an eyebrow.

"Have you fallen asleep standing up?" he asks, half mocking and half sincere.

"No." she grits through her teeth, not moving. "Just stressed."

"What's the haps? I bet I can make you feel better!" he shoves a confident thumb towards himself.

Maka opens one eye to a slit and stares him down. Somehow, the glare of a single, half opened eye manages to pierce Black Star's confidence and he flinches at the side.

_Jeez, women can be scary when they're pissed._

"Was it Kid? Did he say something mean?" Black Star probes further. "I'll beat him up for you! I'm serious, I'll do it!" he exclaims, relishing the excuse to start yet another fight with his part-time friend.

"No, he didn't say anything, you idiot." Maka groans at his audacity. "Why are you here?"

"I'm here to make you feel better, dummy!" he laughs at her stupidity. "Now feel better!" he instructs her, as if he's casting some sort of happy spell and those are the activation words.

To his surprise, she snickers lightly. Senses that he's not trying to be a pain in the ass, he's trying to help. She's a little touched.

"Thanks, but I'm not sure there's anything that will cheer me up right now." She stands up and removes herself from the wall, glancing back at Kid's door where she can still hear muffled voices and an atmosphere of tension. "Look, something's going on. In the city." She divulges, figuring that it wasn't exactly a secret.

Black Star is suddenly all ears.

"Like what?"

"Something powerful. Soul and I fought it last night, but it… it got away from us. It had the same power that Asura had, and Medusa, too." She glances up at her company. "Y'know, manipulating insanity wavelengths?" She shudders at the mention of it. "Soul lost his mind, temporarily. And this morning I found out that Professor Stein was affected, too."

Black Star's ears prick up.

"Was Soul okay?"

"He was fine, I guess. I think it's rattled him, though." Maka glances once more at the closed door. "Professor Stein seemed pretty cagey too. Judging from the way him and Miss Marie were acting… this could be more serious than we realized."

_Dammnit, he'd expected some girly crap, not this._

"What're are the academy going to do?"

Maka shrugs. "They're keeping us posted. I guess they need to determine the threat level before they make it common knowledge. Don't want a widespread panic."

Black Star frowns thoughtfully. "And Soul's  _missing_?! He could be being manipulated right now! Jesus, Maka, we need to  _find_  him!" Black Star's eyes widen as he speaks, remembering the last time the madness had taken hold of Soul in Russia. It had been nearly two years ago, now, but none of them were likely to forget the events of Asura's return in any haste.

"Forget it. I sensed his wavelength." She replies quietly. "That's what I was doing a second ago," she references her weird wall-leaning. "He's around, and he's fine right now. He's just… hiding from me." Her voice comes out very small.

_Oh, so it was like that._

"Why's he doing that?" he asks redundantly.

"I don't know. Maybe he's mad at me." She sighs, looking a little tearful and withdrawn. "I don't think he wants to be my partner anymore. He wants to work on his own." She spills, bitterly. "I think he hates me."

_Funny how one minute Maka could be such a raging badass, and then next she was a soppy mess._

_And Soul was no better!_

"Soul's an idiot!" he exclaims, with emotion. "I love the boy, but he's a clinical moron. Hiding from you? That's such a pussy move! Especially with a powerful enemy out there!" Black Star rages. "I should speak to him-"

"No! Don't," she practically growls, resembling her weapon for a second. "That's the last thing I need." She sighs, her shoulders slumping.

Black Star considers her, one brow quirked.

"Fine." He puts his hands up, surrendering. He adds slyly: "Just so you know, you're an idiot, too."

"What?"

"I said: you're an idiot." He scoffs. "For thinking that Soul would ever abandon you as a partner. The boy is  _obsessed_  with you, for one thing."

Maka seems surprised. "What?" she repeats.

"I mean, c'mon Maka. The last few weeks, all he does is mope around the place. Trust me! I had to live with him. And it was no fun!" Black Star reveals. "He may be a brooding  _moron_ , but there's no way in hell that he hates you. Probably the opposite." He blows air out his cheeks, irritated. "Jeez, you two."

_Of all the things he could be doing in a spare hour…_

_How the hell did he end up doing this?!_

Maka stares at her friend like he's just sprouted an extra head.

"Ugh, why are boys so annoying…?" she bemoans, half to herself.

"Eh." Black Star shrugs nonchalantly. "Knowing him, shutting you out is probably his fucked-up way of keeping you safe." Black Star shakes his head. "Especially if the Black Blood's been acting up." He adds, sagely.

_Man, sometimes he impresses himself with his own wisdom._

"Yeah, I get that. I just wish he'd  _tell_  me what was on his mind." Maka bristles.

"I'll tell you what I would do!" Black Star starts, deciding that she needs his particular brand of advice. "I would be like: HEY SOUL! YOU'RE GONNA TELL ME WHAT'S GOING ON RIGHT NOW, ALRIGHT?!" he bellows, causing Maka to wince. "If you channel the great Black*Star, he'll soften right up." Black Star winks.

She snorts derisively, wishing that she hadn't dropped all her books on the way to Kid's office so that she could clonk him on the head with one of them.

"Right, right. And when  _that_  genius plan doesn't work, what then?"

"It will." Black Star balls his fists determinedly. Maka's about to come up with another snarky retort, but is rudely interrupted by a piercing high-pitched sound emanating from the ceiling.

It's the shrill wail of the school bell, indicating that it's the next period.

"I need to get to my next class." She makes a face, cutting their conversation short. "Crap, I got to run- I have to grab my books." She remembers, cursing. "I left them when I came here…" she trails off slowly as Black Star swings his backpack off his back and rummages through it with a determined look on his face.

"Here. I picked them up for you." He hands the three thick volumes to her with a genuine smile. "Figured that something serious must have been up, if a nerd like you dropped her study books on the floor."

She hesitates, taking back her previous thought about wanting to clonk him on the head, and is struck with feelings of gratefulness.

"Thank you," she expresses, taking her books off from him and cradling them in her arms.

"Psh. It was nothing! You should come to expect a certain level of greatness from me, after all!" he flashes her one of his characteristic kilowatt smiles. "I gotta run, too. I have gym!" He exclaims.

_Ah, gym. The only class he consistently aced, and actively enjoyed._

"Seeya!" he pivots round to call in her direction.

"Bye…" Maka's left bemusedly and pensively staring at his departing outline as he decides to start his cardio training early, by sprinting rapidly down the corridor in the opposite direction.

He's no longer weighed down by the steel in his shoes - in fact, there's a noticeable bounce in his step and a proud grin on his face.

_A whole free period at his disposal, and he'd spent most of it counselling that nerd._

_Tsubaki would have been proud._


	12. Chapter 12

Maka finds herself completely distracted and unable to concentrate in the rest of her classes for that day. So much so, that she breaks character by deciding to head home early: around 4pm. Admittedly, it's not that early for most people- but compared to her busy academic schedule it was practically a day off. After all, even someone as studious as her could see that there was no point stressing herself out trying to work if her mind wasn't agreeing with her. Of course, she placates herself by promising herself that she'll do better tomorrow; wake up at 6 to start working and maybe go for a swim beforehand.

She cracks her knuckles, shoving her key in the lock for the door and surprised to find that it's unlocked already. The door moves open easily and she frowns, stepping inside her apartment.

The heating is on, it's warmer than she'd like. The same temperature Soul likes it. She detects the scent of overcooked toast mingling not unpleasantly in with the cosy familiarity of her home, and decides that he must be here.

"Hello?" she calls into the brightly lit hallway.

She hears a far-off twang from Soul's room and her heart, for no discernible reason, decides to jump into her mouth in a burst of anxiety.

"Soul?" she calls again, clearing her throat and ignoring her hammering heart, tapping twice on his door.

"Yeah." Comes his dull reply through the wall. She takes this as her cue and pushes open his wooden door, finding him cross-legged on his bed with his old wooden guitar in his arms. His troubled eyes reach up and meet her face for a split second, before they fall back down to his strings, plucking them awkwardly and twisting the knobs.

"That's not how you usually play," she comments, referring his usual style of strumming his entire hand down the strings.

"I'm just… Maka, I'm  _tuning_  it." He replies, a little amused exasperation creeping into his tone. To his credit, he visibly tries, and fails, to muffle the smirk that appears on his face. Then he sighs. "I skipped classes." He states the obvious; busy placing an odd-looking black clip onto the top of his guitar. Maka looks nonplussed. "I thought you'd be out until later, so I came back here to wait for you." He swings the heavy thing off his lap and reaches across the room to place it against the wall. The strings reverberate, making a quietly discontented buzzing noise as he sets it down.

"What is that thing?" she asks, pointing to the black clip.

"Oh, this is a capo." She stares at him blankly. He tries again. "For, um… changing the key?"

"What does that mean?"

"It… makes the guitar higher or lower. The sounds." He's not sure how basic to get, but he settles with that.

"Oh." She purses her lips together, sitting next to him on his bed. "I thought you made the strings higher or lower with your fingers?" she recalls him vaguely teaching her the mechanics of a guitar once before.

"Right, but this changes the starting point-" he reaches out and grabs the neck of his guitar, so he's holding it in his lap again. He grasps it oddly at one end and strums his fingers down the other. It makes a pleasant and melodic sound. "So this is an E chord."

He moves both the clip, and his fingers, downwards.

"And this is a G." he tells her. "It's the same shape. The capo transpo– uh… moves it up."

"Oh," she nods in understanding.

He grudgingly accepts that she's never really going to be interested, so plops his guitar back in the corner, as before. She realizes that she's standing over him a little imposingly, so she rectifies the situation by timidly sitting herself down next to him.

When a heavy silence descends on the two of them, he approaches the subject.

"We should talk." He states, the very  _words_  striking fear in the hearts of mortal men. Well, into Maka's heart, anyway. She opportunistically jumps at the chance to speak.

"Okay- I'll start. You left this morning." She bluntly states the obvious. "Why did you leave?"

"I was pissed." He replies, as if the answer is obvious. "My turn. Why did you act like last night was no big deal?"

_Oof. She isn't prepared for a counter-strike._

_Time to play dirty._

"Hey, no fair! You didn't properly answer your question. Why were you so angry? I mean, Blair said you ignored her, but that's no big deal. But the  _couch cushions_ , Soul! What did the couch cushions ever do to you?!"

He lets out an almost silent chuckle. "Apart from being hideously kitsch?" he jokes, but when Maka gives him her Stern Face™ he bites back his grin. "Hmm. Okay, so I was pissed at myself, for letting myself get manipulated like that. And for…" he bites his lip. "For letting it get that far without being honest with you." He answers. She lets him know that his answer is to her satisfaction by nodding permissively. "So, your turn."

"Sure thing. Only, I don't really understand the question, because I  _did_  think last night was a big deal. I even went to speak to Kid this morning, but he was too busy to really listen to me…" she explains.

"I don't mean  _that_  part." His eyes flash in mild annoyance, and he wonders if she purposely avoided his question. "I mean. Y'know, what happened."

_So he's too awkward to say it? Fine. She'll say it._

"The madness took us both over, and we kissed." She shrugs, ignoring the way her ears burn as the words come out of her, and tries extremely hard to act like she hasn't been obsessing about it ever since. "It's really okay, Soul. I've been reading a lot of books on the subject." She informs him, which causes him to emit a groan. She ignores him and carries on regardless. "Sometimes, intense soul resonance and wavelength bonding can manifest in strangely, and often that can be in a sort of…er,  _primal_ , way. It's to be expected in some pairs, apparently."

He wills her to stop talking, but she doesn't.

"The extreme levels of resonance that we achieved through the black blood probably brought about the same side effects. So… that's my answer. I didn't think it was a big deal, because it probably isn't." Her voice successfully projects the confidence that she doesn't feel inside.

"So weapons and meisters are all going around trying to  _fuck_  each other, is that what you're telling me?" he responds, the skeptical tone in his voice indicating that he's starting to become irritated.

Maka fails to hide her flush this time around.

"Soul, you asked me a question, and I answered it." She says firmly, folding her arms over her chest.

"Fine." He picks at his sleeve, not looking at her again.

_Dammit, why is he still being like this?_

She decides that's her question.

"Why does it  _bother_  you so much?"

He shrugs again, and in a snappy second she decides to use Black Star's patented method of getting people to spill. "DAMMIT, Eater. You're my GODDAMN weapon, and you  _will_  tell me what is bothering you!"

_Oops. Did she overdo it?_

"Sorry." He grits out, equally trying to use Tsubaki's patented method of baring his soul. He closes his eyes; imagines that he's talking to himself. "It bothers me, because I don't like the fact that I could hurt you; or even treat you like that at all. Even if I wasn't aware of my own actions, it was still enough of  _me_  for me to feel guilty about it, ok?" he reveals, but he's not done. He has weeks of baggage to unload. "I've felt something off for a while, now. I could feel it getting stronger, the madness in my blood. At first, I thought I could ignore it and it would go away, but it didn't, so I had to take matters into my own hands." He finishes, more animated than he's been in a little while. "So there it is: we couldn't resonate because _I wouldn't let us_ , because _I knew something like this would happen_." He enunciates a little matter-of-factly but he's relieved, having gotten his point across.

_Woah. So Black Star was right about the shouting thing, then. That was something to file away._

She clears her throat.

"You knew this would happen?" she asks, her features softening as she searches those dark crimson eyes for an answer.

He exhales through his cheeks, creating a horse-y sound. "Yeah, pretty much." He admits. "Look, there's something else. Just use your soul perception, alright? Just for a second."

She's taken aback but does as he requests. The giant, bloated translucent representation of  _him_  is revealed to her within seconds. A gasp falls out of her, seeing what Stein had seen a couple sessions ago when he had perceived the same thing.

_It's covered in black._

_How long had it been like that?_

"Soul…" she breathes an air of sadness into her tone, deciding better than to reprimand him for not showing her sooner. "Is that the blood?" she asks, although she already knows the answer.

"I noticed it a couple months back. It was getting amped up, right about the time that we started perfecting kishin-hunter." He tries to go back; explain. "Maka, I couldn't let you get hurt." His voice is so teeming with emotion that Maka's a little taken aback. "What happened last night, in the Black Room… I don't know if that's just the tip of the iceberg."

She bites her lip, finds herself touching his arm out of comfort. "Hey, it's your question." She realizes, not sure how else to respond.

"I don't have anything else." He admits, still feeling the effects of the weight off his shoulders. "Do you?" he asks, absently. Maka can feel her own pulse in her left thumb, which is pressed against his shoulder blade.

"Yeah." She replies. "You know, you really didn't hurt me. Last night, in the Black Room." She reminisces. "I think I kissed you back, actually." She admits with an embarrassed laugh, the noise escaping like air through a pressure valve. The simile fits, because she does feel a slight release in the tension that's built up between them.

She doesn't know when it happened, but the mood has shifted from before. Something's up between them; their soul wavelength bond is humming and thriving and this time, he's not breaking her gaze. She figures that she must not be very attentive, because she was also unaware of when Soul placed his hand in a light touch on her injured shoulder. His calloused fingers gently flicker upwards as he twirls a strand of her golden hair through them.

_If she hadn't known better, she'd have thought he was about to kiss her again._

_Or does she know better?_

"I can't believe that thing hurt you," he says softly, his gaze temporary breaking from her eyes to her shoulder, then back again. She smiles sweetly at him, letting herself get closer in proximity to the warmth of his body heat.

"See? If I can handle black blood  _demon swords_ , I can definitely handle... a, uh, a little..."

She stops dead in her tracks. All semblance of whatever flirtatious sentence she was about to utter hollows out of her brain, replaced by a fresh new sense of dread.

_Black Blood._

_Madness._

_Black Demon Swords._

The words swirl viciously and tauntingly around her mind and pool at the very bottom of her stomach as she realizes how very  _stupid_  she's been. Every trace of the previous conversation forgotten, she lurches forward so that she's standing up in a dazed and confused sense of urgency.

Next to her, Soul senses her jarring emotions and rattled wavelength, his mind rapidly back to the last thing she said. He seems to put the pieces together only a few seconds after, because he snaps out of whatever strange mood had existed just seconds ago and scrambles to his feet as well.

" _Shit_ ," he swears, articulating very well how Maka feels. "Maka, we gotta let Kid know." his voice barely registers to her.

Only a single word swarms round her mind, and the very same word is the only one which makes it to her lips as it slips out of her, half-whispered.

Crona.


	13. Chapter 13

Soul's long and eclectic history at the academy is by no means boring. Working for Lord Death and Kid had so far seen him privy a whole host of antagonists; namely insane demon clowns, bandage-clad dangerous neurotics, top-heavy mosquito men and not one, not two, but  _three_  propagations of evil witch sisters.

So when Maka lightly suggests that their current enemy is the supposedly-dead Crona – let it be said that he's not completely unwilling to suspend his disbelief.

In the time it takes her to drag him out the house, mount the back of his orange motorcycle and begin combing the old streets, a few concerns start to occur to him.

"Uh, Maka?" he clears his throat, having to talk pretty loudly over the whir of the engine and the wind roaring around them. "If it  _was_  Crona, then why wouldn't you have sensed his wavelength? Y'know, last night?"

She grips his jacket a little tighter.

"Just  _drive_ , Soul." she grits. "We'll talk about it later."

Dealing with Maka when she's in these chaotic moods is practically second nature by this point, so he lets it roll over him.

_After all, it's not like she probably hadn't already thought of that. Rash as she might be, she wasn't a complete idiot._

He twists his bike forward in acceleration, the two of them hurtling forward up the hill to the academy as he wonders why they didn't just call Kid using that hokey old '4242-564' mirror trick, or better yet, a phone! There was zero guarantee that he was even  _in_  his office, yet typical: Maka's first instinct is to hop straight on the bike and whiz on over there.

_For Death's sake, he's spent all day trying to avoid the academy…_

When they arrive, out of one-part time efficiency and three parts fun, he throws the steering sideways, causing the bike to lurch to one side and skid obliquely to a stop somewhere outside the front gates.

"How's that for parallel parking, huh?" he asks distractedly, but Maka's already leapt half off the garish orange thing. Once her second foot is freed, she bursts through the main entrance of the school and takes off running; boots clacking repetitively on the echoing floorboards. "Wait up, Maka!" he calls after her, breaking into a sprint on her tail. He doesn't bother locking up his bike in the parking lot, not least because he feels as though Maka's sense of urgency won't allow him to take such liberties. It's not like there was anybody at the academy who didn't know that the lurid vehicle was Soul's anyhow. And it was even unlikelier than anybody was stupid enough to want to take on one of the most proficient Meisters of her age, armed with one of Lord Death's weapons.

He runs several paces behind her, zig-zagging across campus and flying up stone steps. He's cursing her intense cardio regime and his resultant inability to keep up with it when she suddenly and without any prior warning, digs her heels into the ground in corridor 4C. He narrowly avoids colliding into her suddenly still figure. Her ears prick up as she senses something.

Not for the second time this week, Soul is forced to compare her to a dog.

"What's up?"

"I sensed someone," she replies. He's suddenly on guard, his veins itching for battle, but she puts a hand up to cool him down. "No, not that." She frowns, staring down at the now-dark hallways.

_Damnit, why did stuff like this always happen after dusk?_

"P-Professor Stein?" she calls hesitantly down the echoing stretch of interior.

Sure enough, the good doctor steps out from the shadows –  _why was he always hiding in the shadows?_  – blowing cigarette smoke out of the side of his mouth. Soul wrinkles up his nose at the sudden stench of formaldehyde which graces the air.

"Soul, Maka." He greets them impassively, voice low.

"Professor!" Maka exclaimed. "Why are you still here? I thought you weren't teaching any more classes?" she asks. Soul's features snap into a confused frown.

_When had that happened?_

Maka realizes that, what with everything else going on between them, she had totally blanked on telling Soul about what had happened in her meeting with Kid. She's about to fill him in, but Stein cuts in first.

"Yes, that's right. I'm just here to finish off some research I've been doing." He studiously pushes his glasses up his face. Soul wonders with a grimace why he didn't just get a pair of glasses that actually fitted him. "I should ask you two the same question, skulking around here after classes." He adds: "Well, those of you who actually  _attended_  classes today." The professor steels his gaze onto Soul.

He balks.

_Jeez, weren't there more pressing concerns than his laissez-faire attitude to attendance?_

Maka addresses this. "Professor, we came to see Kid." She admits. "I think I might have an idea whose been behind the insanity wavelengths. I sensed the wavelength before, it wasn't exactly familiar, but I had this strange feeling about it…" she hesitates.

"Oh?" replies Stein, his tone indicating the barest hint of surprise. Maka continues.

"And then, earlier, we realized." She gestures to Soul. "The enemy we fought in the streets had been a  _long_ ,  _black sword._  Professor, I know it sounds crazy, but I really think all of this might have something to do with Crona, and the demon sword Ragnorak."

Professor Stein smiles, his face now betraying that he's intrigued if not totally convinced.

"That's certainly an interesting theory, given that Crona has been presumed to be dead after the battle with Asura." He nods serenely, two fingers reaching up to pluck his cigarette out of his mouth while he exhales. "Would you mind coming to my office? I'd like to talk to the two of you, if you wouldn't mind." his attention turns to Soul. "Soul, it might be of some use to compare our experiences yesterday evening. After all, the insanity had a large effect on my mental state, also." He reveals, causing Soul to look even more mystified.

_It wasn't just him, then?_

Much as Soul detests being compared to the professor, he's a little relieved to have a kindred spirit.

"Uh… we were just on our way to tell Kid, actually." Maka seems a little bewildered by his request, her finger pointing lamely to Kid's office direction.

"He's gone home, sadly." Stein shakes his head. "But we can tell him tomorrow, hm?"

Soul's eyes flit to Maka, who has a look of acceptance and compliance on her face as she nods surely, beginning to follow their teacher down to his office in the basement. He himself hesitates for a couple seconds, holding back.

_If Kid's gone home, then why's Stein skulking around in corridor 4C?_

Maka's head whips round and her eyes narrow at Soul, making a hurried gesture with her hands that he should stop standing and follow along, too.

Against his better judgment, he finds himself acquiescing to his Meister's commands, though not without some doubt still lingering.

"Thank you both for coming." Stein greets them warmly if a little impersonally, once they step inside his dingy room. "I know it's outside of usual operating hours, but I felt it was important for us all to discuss the recent events at Shibusen, in light of last night." A ghost of a smile appears on his lips.

Soul's stomach chooses this inopportune moment to gurgle loudly with hunger, reminding him painfully that he hasn't managed to actually eat anything all day. Maka shoots an irritated glare his way, and Stein seems to notice too if his glance is anything to go by.

_As if he's somehow in control of his autonomous bodily functions._

"Oh, that's right. It's dinner time; the two of you must be starving. I'm afraid that I don't have any food, but I can offer you some coffee." He turns around, and flicks on the kettle balanced on the small grey table in one corner of the room. It was a jarringly modern piece in an otherwise gothic scenery. Seeing their odd looks, he acknowledges the juxtaposition. "I wouldn't usually have a kettle in here, but Marie tends to drink a lot of tea during the day." He explains. "A side-effect of her past relationship with Buttataki, I take it."

Maka and Soul share an equally weirded-out look at how oddly tranquil their professor seems.

"I'm still confused. What happened to you last night?" Soul butts in, demanding to be filled in. "I know what happened on our mission, but you earlier mentioned something about an insanity wavelength?"

Stein nods. "Yes, that's right. Last night there was a strong madness wavelength in the air. I'd had trouble placing it - until Maka mentioned what happened to the two of you, on your mission. Whatever was trying to manipulate Soul's blood ended up manipulating mine, too. Whether by accident or on purpose… who's to say?"

Soul wonders how much Maka told Stein, and his nerves cause his fists to ball up. He works up the courage to ask.

"Maka, did you-"

They hear the kettle click off, interrupting his train of thought as Stein clasps his hands together and stands up to pour them some drinks. "Coffee's ready." He says, steam curling up from the two mugs in opposing patterns. The cup he hands Maka contains liquid of a milky brown variety, while Soul's is a rich black.

_How the hell did he know how we drink our coffee?_

He takes the mug off his teacher anyway and blows on it to cool it down. After all, he  _was_  a little tired, not having slept very well the last few nights. A coffee would probably do him good. He takes a chug in a vain attempt to try and wake himself up a little, as Maka and Stein get down to business.

"So, to clarify: Maka, you suspect that the demon sword Crona is behind this?"

"Yes." She grits her teeth, spitting out. "I'm sure of it. It's just too much of a coincidence. We know that the presence has the ability to manipulate black blood and has inherent waves of madness. And the sword saw at our battle last night, I mean we didn't get a good look, but it was long and black, like his weapon Ragnorak." She chews a thumbnail nervously. "Not to mention, whoever this is knows our weaknesses and how to exploit them. Who else could it be?" She asks pressingly.

Stein glances equally between the pair of them, and Soul swears,  _swears_ \- that the professor emits just the tiniest hint of a laugh. "I know it sounds like a crazy hunch," Maka doesn't seem to notice Stein's derision; shakes her head. "But I can't explain it! I'm sure of it…"

"It's certainly possible. When we last saw Crona, he stayed on the moon to fight the kishin Asura. It's been two years since then, who knows how that kind of exposure could have affected his madness levels?" Stein says a little too positively, causing Soul to think that maybe he's just humoring her.

"That's what I thought!" she exclaims. "Maybe that's why I didn't recognize his wavelength, also. It could have changed."

Stein stares at her, hard.

"I'll certainly mention it to Kid and the others." He says. "But as a theory, I've got to say- I don't think it has much merit."

Maka's expression goes from attentive to confounded in a matter of seconds.

"B-but…?"

"It's based on incomplete, circumstantial evidence. Your own firsthand witness testimony is unsure, and you have no explanation for why Crona would suddenly return after two years to cause problems at the academy." His words come fast and sharp with criticism. Maka blinks and Soul raises an eyebrow attentively.

_He should consider a career in law._

"But- like I said. It's very interesting." He shrugs. "That aside… I actually called the two of you down here to discuss something else."

His usually studious, comforting presence takes on a sinister and calculating feel.

"O-oh?" Maka responds, the wind taken out of her sails.

"You said the two of you harnessed a high level of Soul Resonance, when it happened?"

"Yes, that's right." She nods, a little shakily.

"That was almost  _definitely_  a side effect of the black blood. The nature of it is that it amps up Resonance levels, often at the expense of the owner. And if black blood levels are increased, then so too, are your Resonance rates." Stein twists his giant head-screw with a smile. "If we could find out how to make it always work without affecting either of you negatively, it could be a breakthrough." He twists again, just once. "You two are the closest I've ever come to being able to actually harness, and experiment… with the blood," he flashes his grin again, and Maka begins to get a creepy feeling down her spine.

Stein watches her intently  _almost_  take a sip of her coffee, before putting the cup back down again with growing unease.

"I'm not letting you experiment on me if it means I'll hurt… I'll…hurt…  _shit_ ," Soul makes a funny noise and grabs his head in a dazed fashion.

Maka's head whips round to him, shock permeating her eyes.

"Soul?!" she demands, as he clutches his skull.

_Oh, jeez. My head hurts._

_What the hell?_

_Oh, death. The coffee. Christ. Why did I… why… did…._

Stein's face is a picture of sheer amusement as Maka, hand still on her cup, is still staring perturbed at her partner, who is uncharacteristically contorting his face in pain.

"Maka… the coffee," he manages to grit out, just before he falls from his chair next to her and collapses, his side hitting the cold hard marble slab that is the floor of Stein's office in the patchwork lab. The mug shatters as it follows him to the ground.

She's scared to death out of her reverie and runs to his side, shaking his body to wake him up- but his eyes remain closed and his features remain still.

"Soul!" she half-sobs, half-yells. "What did you put in our coffee?!" she turns up to face Stein, face pale with panic. Stein is watching placidly.

"Maka, don't worry about  _your_  coffee." His sickly smile inches ever further up his face. "I didn't put anything in it."

Maka freezes stock still.

_What the hell did that mean? He didn't put anything in 'her' coffee?_

"Can't say the same for him, though." Stein smiles.

Maka grits her teeth and stands up.

"What did you  _do_  to him?" her stance broadens next to him, appearing that she's ready to fight. But with her eyes flitting to Soul's unconscious body, she realises that with her partner out cold, it appears that she's a little useless. A bead of sweat drips down her forehead.

 _Not that she could ever compete with Professor Stein, anyway_.

His eyes flash threateningly just for a second and Maka clenches her fists, ready to throw a punch regardless.

"Relax, Maka. Please, retake your seat." He leans backwards in his chair. "I just put a little muscle relaxant in there, as well as a mild sedative." He laughs, as if something might have been funny about this situation. "I didn't think it would be that easy, actually. I was sure I'd have to go to far greater lengths. Soul should probably work on being less trusting."

Maka blinks twice, raising one eyebrow. She looks as though she's not entirely sure whether she might be in a dream, whether this version of Professor Stein was really standing in front of her.

"W-why?!"

"Because I knew that he would not agree to be my test subject willingly. And I'm starting to suspect that Soul's consciousness might be a factor holding you back from proper Resonance, or at least achieving your full capacity."

Maka stands frozen in her fighting stance, blinking slowly and stupidly.

"I won't  _let_  you do this!"

"It's in your best interests to comply with me, Maka." He levels her with his gaze, warningly. "Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt either of you. I promise you that." He holds his hands up. "But… perhaps it might be best to keep this little experiment… private."

Maka sits down unsurely.

_I can't fight him. He'll hurt Soul._

"What are you going to do?" she eventually asks, swallowing thickly.

"I simply want you to Resonate with him." Stein smiles in a manner he means to be comforting but is extremely disconcerting. "Please," he waves a hand at the floor. "I'm going to be observing, with my Soul Perception."

_Resonate with an unconscious weapon? Wasn't that a little invasive?_

Distrustful, but true to her form of obeying her professors when they ask her to complete a task, she kneels on the floor next to her unconscious partner. She reaches out a places a hand on his chest, feeling for his wavelength.

"It's still there," she says, with a hint of surprise. "His wavelength, I can still  _feel_  it."

"Of course. It's just his brain which is turned off, his soul is still very much active." Stein clarifies. "Please, continue."

She reaches down compliantly and touches a hand to his chest.

"Soul…" she says, her voice sorrowful. "I'm sorry,"

Her eyes squeeze shut as she lightly connects their wavelengths, resonating at a low frequency. One peek up to her looming professor confirms that he wants her to resonate at a higher frequency rate, so she intensifies their bond exponentially.

Her eyes are closed, so her first indication that they've reached higher levels of resonance is when a cold chill runs through her, and her ears pick up the rough, irregular scratches of vinyl on a record player, cutting through ominous, plonky jazz.

She gasps, opening her eyes a crack, and confirming what she already knows.

_The Black Room._

"Soul!" her eyes widen and frantically search round the room for her partner. "Soul, where are you!?"

**_No-one here but me, I'm afraid. Soul's not here right now._ **

She hears the callous, mocking voice and the source of it immediately appears; that huge, crooked red ogre who stands behind the piano.

_He's bigger than she remembers._

"What have you done with Soul?!" she demands, fearlessly striding up to the monster and jabbing a finger in its face. "I swear, I'll kill you!" she threatens.

**_"It's been a while, hasn't it… Maka Albarn? I'd say I've missed you, but well. That would be a lie._ **

"Where is he!"

The ogre fake-sweetly raises his gnarled, grotesque hands in a gesture of innocence.

**_So quick to assign me blame. You should really be asking the good Professor that question, not me. After all, that coffee he gave Soul had more in it than a sedative._ **

She feels her legs about to give way under her, so she tightens her grip on the ornate grand piano beside her, steadying herself.

"What do you mean by that,  _ogre_?" she spits out.

**_What I mean is… your professor slipped something in that tea which would heighten Soul's madness, suppressing his ability to control it. That's why Soul's locked away somewhere else._ **

"He… he what? How is that kind of thing even  _possible_?" she scowls.

**_You shouldn't be so surprised, you know. It's actually happened once before._ **

_What? She thinks she would remember if something like this had… had…_

_Unless…_

"Last night? The battle…" she shakes her head. "No, it  _couldn't_  have been. Soul was right here… we…" she's distracted from finishing her sentence by the ogre, who's contrarily shaking his head at her.

**_You're half right. It wasn't truly Soul, but a reflection of his innermost self; a version of him without inhibitions._ **

**_Just like I am._ **

Maka's reminded of Stein in the way that the demon's smile seems to grow larger with each passing second.

_Wait, did that mean…_

She tries to focus on the present, shaking her head as if she could throw the tempting thought out of her mind that way.

"But… why is this happening?"

**_That's a very good question. I'm not entirely sure of it myself, actually. It feels similar to the force that put me inside Soul in the first place, all those years ago._ **

_"_ So it  _is_  Crona _...?"_

**_There's no telling. Either way, Soul's black blood has been acting up for a good while now. Yesterday was the first time he's let slip and given me the reigns._ **

_The demon was in control of Soul?_

She feels Soul's soul give an aggressive tug at her wavelength and her expression stiffens.

_What the hell is happening?_

**_Don't look so angry, we're being watched you know._ **

The demon points upwards, but all Maka sees is blackness, stretching on endlessly.

"Watched?" she asks, her confusion deepening. "Who is watching us?"

Her skin prickles and the demon doesn't answer her question, sensing that she's already answered it herself. "But what does Professor Stein want to  _watch_  this for?"

**_It's an experiment._ **

Maka's body rejects the word, every one of her muscles stiffening up. She attempts to cut their Resonance but finds that she's unable to. Something else is controlling it, now.

**_Nice try, but I'm in control, now. And you're going to give in to the madness, too._ **

"NO!" she screams, as the ogre steps towards her, grabbing his hands on each side of her arms and locking her in place. "SOUL!" she screams out, but if he's anywhere in the room, he can't respond

She feels the madness wavelength taking her over, creeping inside her mind.

_This is what Soul's been trying to protect me from._

_What do I do?!_

Thinking quickly, she summons all of her remaining energy and channels her Grigori soul as best she can, yanking her arms out of the demons grasp and drawing her arm backwards.

Her fist smashes into the ogre's face, her punch burning with the anti-demon wavelength of her Grigori soul and causing him to stumble backwards, incapacitated for just a second. Before he can reach back up again, she yells out; clamps down on her Resonance with Soul and cuts their ties.

The Black Room swarms around her angrily, tendrils of black smoking away like puzzle pieces to reveal the greyness of Stein's office once more.

Unfortunately, her situation here looked just as dicey.

Stein stands in front of the door, blocking her escape.

"You got away." He states plainly, reaching out his hands. They buzz and crackle with the electric yellow lines of his soul force attack, which is about to be directed straight at her, if she doesn't act quickly.

"What are you doing, Professor?" she asks, her heart beating a little too quickly for her to feign calm.

"You will Resonate with Soul again. And this time, you're going to let the madness overcome you." He says eerily calmly, taking a step away from his office door and towards her, the wavelengths coursing through his hands only buzzing more intently with potential energy.

"SOUL!" she yells, suddenly. "WAKE UP, PLEASE!"

_Her only chance now was him, but she knows it's futile._

"There's no point resisting me, Maka." Stein tells her, his voice becoming crazed. "You may as well give in now, and join Soul and I in our madness."

The wavelength she sensed in the graveyard and during the mission is infiltrating all the air around her with a vengeance.

_This is what insanity did to Stein?_

"I won't do it! I  _won't_  sacrifice my sanity!" she clenches her jaw in anger and fear. "Professor Stein, you don't have to either!  _Don't_  do this!" she begs him, readying herself to throw a punch.

_There's no way she's winning this, but there's no way she's going out without a fight, either._

"What a shame. I always prefer it when the participants of my experiments are… willing volunteers." He takes a few steps towards her now, backing her into the sharp, stony corners of his office.

It all happens in a split second. One moment, he's in front of her and about to exact his attack on her soul. The next, he's standing stock still as if there's been an impact from behind him. From the looks of it, whatever it was appears to have completely knocked the wind out of him.

_Hadn't he been just about to attack me?_

_What could have done that?_

Stein's body crumples to the floor, making a loud and wince-inducing crunch as it does so. Maka exhales slowly, her heart still beating fast as she stares at the now inanimate body of her teacher-turned-enemy lying on the floor. Her eyes crawl upwards to see what had caused the impact.

Behind him, Kid stands in the now-open doorframe; his arm cannons still smoking with the ballistic force of his attack. Beside him stands Sid; looking more than ready for a fight and a big scowl adorning his features.

"Maka," Kid says urgently. "Come with me,  _now_."


	14. Chapter 14

She scrambles up, out the corner she's been resigned to and mouths her wordless thank you to him; her body, mind and soul still processing the shock of the last few minutes.

"Professor Stein…" she says with alarm, still panting. "He's going to wake up!"

"I know. Maka, we should hurry. Don't worry, Sid will take care of the professor."

The world around her is rushing around so quickly, she barely even processes what's happening as Patty, Liz and Kid haul an unconscious Soul up to his feet; as Sid busies himself rummaging through Stein's desk drawer and pulls out a syringe full of liquid, plunging the thick point of it into the professor's arm.

_How did they know we were in here?_

"It's done," Sid says, wiping a sheen of sweat from his forehead in relief. "He's out, Kid. The effects should last for the next… four hours, at least."

Kid's eyes darken. "Secure him in one of the cells. We will be in the infirmary, with Soul." He turns back. "Maka, are you hurt?"

"No, I'm fine." She shakes her head. "You got there just in time. How did you  _know_ …?"

"We didn't know exactly, but Sid and I both sensed some dangerous wavelengths, originating from Professor Stein's office." He clears his throat, dryly noticing the dirtiness of his surroundings and stepping out into the hall. "Given what happened to Stein last night, we assumed the worst." He continues, happier in a cleaner space. "What I  _didn't_  expect was to find one of my most valuable weapons and friends incapacitated on the floor." He grimaces.

"Stein's pretty scary when he loses it like that, huh," Patty comments, and Liz gives her a look.

"Yeah, you don't say." The older sister shudders in response. "You alright, Maka?" her eyes kindly regard Maka, who nods unsurely.

"Fine… is Soul going to be okay? Professor Stein… he gave him something."

Kid makes a face, shuffling down the hallway; one of Soul's arms draped loosely over him, carrying the whole weight of the boy.

The thought doesn't escape Maka that it might look to an outsider as if they had killed Soul and were disposing of the body, dragging him limply along like this.

_Don't think like that. He's going to be okay._

As if sensing her mind, Liz puts a hand on her shoulder.

"Maka, we're going to make sure Soul is alright. Kid- should we call Marie?"

"I think that Nygus may be of more use in this situation." He replies. Liz whips out her phone from her pocket, presumably to make a call to the combatant nurse. "But as Stein's partner, I'll notify her as soon as we've tended to Soul." He replies, beginning to sweat a little. "Speaking of which, I could use a little help…?" he asks politely. "He's a little heavy."

Liz and Patty titter, sharing a look. Maka reaches underneath Soul's other arm and wraps it around her, bearing half the weight.

She reaches, sensing for his wavelength and breathes an audible sigh of relief when she finds it; weak but still alive; still reverberating.

"I can sense his soul." She tells Kid. "He's okay."

_Well, okay might be a stretch. Alive was more generally applicable._

They reach the infirmary, and Kid and Maka haul Soul onto one of the spare hospital beds with some difficulty. Maka stares tearfully down at her weapon, and then her olive orbs reach searchingly up to Kid, as if asking for answers.

"Nygus is on her way," Liz offers. "I'm sorry, Maka. It looks like he's out cold. I think there might be a good chance you might have to wait this one out." The girls all glance down at Soul's sleeping physique.

"He looks so sleepy!" Patty interjects, with a smile. "I kinda want to draw a moustache on him," she laughs. Liz's expression is one of wry amusement.

"Let's wait until he's better before we draw anything on him, okay Patty?" she says a little condescendingly, placing an arm in front of her as if to keep her at bay.

Meanwhile, Kid is staring intently at Maka, which doesn't go unnoticed by her. She also notices, for the first time, how grown he looks. Still fairly tall and slender, his hair is now cut a little shorter; a less boyish style. He dresses in a similar way as always; expensive black suits adorned with little grey stone skulls. But far and away the most striking thing about the change is his face; his face looks so much older, wiser. He's accumulated dark under-eyes from the stress of running the academy, his expressions take on a world-weary pallor; less youthful and trusting.

Something occurs to her, a vague memory of something she'd barely managed to take in at the time.

"What was in that syringe? The one Sid put in Professor Stein's arm?"

"Oh, that." Kid frowns. "It was a sedative. The last time that Stein lost his mind; during the rise of the kishin Asura – we decided to put in place measures that would help us to easily immobilize the doctor, in case we ever needed it again." He replies, his tone sombre. "In the madness, I suppose Stein forgot all about it; or at least there was enough of his sane mind left to leave it there for us." Kid muses, thoughtfully. "As for my attack, well, that was pure luck. If Stein had not been so preoccupied with you… well, let's just say the whole ordeal would have been a lot more difficult."

_So the academy was just relying on blind luck, now?_

She swallows her anxiety as Kid continues.

"Now might be a good time to discuss things with you, Maka." He gestures for her to take a seat, one of the ones for visitors of inpatients. "Patty, Liz. Would you mind giving me and Maka a few minutes of privacy? When Nygus arrives, please let her in." he waves his weapons away. The girls exit accordingly, and Kid sits down to face his friend-turned-employee. "Listen, Maka. After our meeting this morning, I got hold of Asuza for advice." He explains.

_Asuza?_

Asuza was one of the Deathscythes that Lord Death had assigned to oversee the hunting of kishin across the globe. She had a particularly strong ability to sense intricate details of an environment; particularly soul wavelengths, so came in extra hand for espionage or intelligence missions.

"Okay…?" Maka replies.

"We wanted to rule out the possibility that the insanity wavelength could be caused by the kishin. Asuza's soul perception analysis of the moon indicated that the Asura… is dead and gone."

_Well, that was one heck of a relief._

_Except…_

"What about Crona?" she asks. "He went up there with Asura. Is  _he_  dead, too?"

Kid hesitates. "Curiously, she couldn't find any trace of Crona, or his weapon, Ragnorak. It's possible that they both perished along with Asura. Or they might have escaped. Being exposed to those levels of madness can have unprecedented effects on a person."

Maka jumps up with her chance to speak. "Kid! The enemy, on the mission yesterday. Whoever it was, they wielded a powerful black sword. Could it be…?"

Kid's eyebrows spring upwards in perfect unison. "You think the madness could be being caused by Crona and Ragnorak?" his hand flies to his face where it strokes his chin, deep in thought. Maka nods a little fiercely.

"I just had this  _feeling_ … I came here to tell you about it. Then we bumped into Professor Stein," she shudders, reliving the memory back. "Not that it really matters, but Stein didn't seem to agree."

_But then, Stein was not exactly of sound mind right now._

"We can't rule out the possibility of Crona and Ragnorak's return." Kid says but follows it up a little darkly. "Though… knowing the levels of insanity that they must have been exposed to; locked in with Asura all that time, if it  _was_  them, I doubt there would be anything left of the Crona we knew." He says theatrically.

Maka's eyes fall worriedly from Kid to her partner, pale and sickly-looking collapsed on the infirmary bed.

"What does that mean?" she whispers.

"It means… I really hope that you're  _wrong_ , Maka."


	15. Chapter 15

Professor Stein was the academy's most prolific medical practitioner, everybody knew that. There was barely anything he couldn't cure- be it with impromptu surgery or a vast array of his own home-brewed pharmaceuticals. That's  _without_  going into his disturbing prowess in pioneering anatomical research.

But let it be said that Nygus could  _seriously_  give the man a run for his money.

In two days, Soul is almost completely back to normal with barely  _any_  side effects from the surprisingly strong medication he'd unwittingly taken. She's fixed him up good and proper, with only a warning that he should spend a few days resting from the supposed psychological trauma of it all.

In fact, the only lingering consequence of the whole ordeal was how eager Maka suddenly was to submit to literally  _any_  of his whims. When he'd first woken up – albeit a little dazed and confused – she'd been at his side with all his favorite snack foods, a dvd and Black Star and Tsubaki in tow. And what's more, Maka had struck a deal that if Black Star refrained from inflicting any physical abuse to his comatose buddy, she'd refer to him as 'God' for a week.

And hey, the first day it had been downright  _lovely_. When he'd arrived home, he'd found his bed made, the apartment cleaned, some fresh cookies on the side. Bar the whole Stein-being-locked-up and Evil-demon-insanity thing, life had been pretty hunky-dory.

And Maka was an excellent stress-baker.

On day two however, he had started to crave normalcy, finding the whole façade of the thing slightly grating.

Take right now, for example. He's just sitting on his couch, playing a little Xbox, and suddenly she's all up in the picture; politely asking him that  _when he's done with his game, would he like to please tell her what he wants for dinner?_

Which had prompted him to switch off his Xbox mid-kill and sigh loudly and pointedly at her.

"Who  _are_  you and what have you done with Maka?" he scoffs the cliché at her, a little bored of this game they're playing. The sudden silence of the TV is deafening.

"What do you mean? I just wanted to know what you wanted to eat…?" her face is a carefully crafted picture of shock and innocence, but he's the king of fake emotions, and he doesn't buy it.

"Okay, let's analyze." He starts, rolling over from his comfortable position so his whole body faces her. "Since  _when_  do you ever: A, let me finish my game, B, ask me what I  _want to eat_ , or C, offer to make dinner when its my turn?" he retorts, his eyebrows settling into a skeptical frown.

He decides that enough is enough, and stands up, throwing the Xbox controller down on the couch behind him, forgotten. Maka crosses her arms a little defensively.

"I'm just trying to be nice." She says through her teeth.

"Yeah, but I didn't  _ask_  you to be," he grits, and, realizing that he's coming across a little brash, adds: "Let  _me_  make dinner. It's my turn after all."

She huffily shakes her head. "No  _way_  are you making dinner. Not after what happened to you. You need to relax! De-stress!" she stomps back through into the adjacent room, throwing her arms up in exasperation.

_Watching her pretend to be happy while rushing round doing chores for him did not de-stress him._

_Not in the slightest._

He follows her into the kitchen to continue their little argument. "Fine, then how's this: no way are YOU making dinner, either." Now both standing aimlessly in the kitchen, he yanks a frying pan out of her hand. "Jesus, Maka, you didn't even eat anything yesterday."

She scowls and yanks it back, resulting in a tug of war over the thing.

"I did!"

"No, you didn't! I just watched you push your food around while you watched me eat. You're not taking care of yourself, not to mention it was super creepy." He realises with a hint of amusement that this might be the first time they've ever fought over who gets to make dinner.

"Fine, I didn't, but only because I was  _worried about you_!" she exclaims, tugging the frying pan over to her person. Soul suddenly lets go his grip on the thing, causing her to stumble back a few steps in surprise. She places it gingerly on the hob and continues to search through the cupboards for food.

"You don't need to worry about me," he replies, suddenly cool again. "I'm completely fine, okay? Quit treating me like your little brother, Jesus." He remarks, bitterly.

Maka makes a 'psh' noise. "Oh,  _yeah_ , because what happened in the Black Room was totally me treating you like a little  _brother_." As soon as she says it, her hands slap over her mouth in regret. "Oh, just  _forget_  it, Soul." She says, angry at mostly herself, slamming the cupboard door shut and storming across the kitchen.

_Why does he get the feeling that they're just going to go back to square one if she leaves?_

He stops her with a hand on her arm.

"Sorry, sorry." He mutters, a little grudgingly. "Can we not fight?" he asks, a little quieter. Maka blows the steam out of her in a small sigh, forcing herself to relax. "You really shouldn't blame yourself for that, anyway." He adds, referencing her last comment. "It was my fault."

"It wasn't, actually." Maka admits, feeling slightly awkward. "It was neither of us."

_Huh?_

"That red ogre man explained it to me, when I was inside your soul." She starts to explain, leaning back against the countertop. "Apparently that version of you was created in your image; something like you but without any inhibitions." Maka coughs, which does nothing to break the ice that's inexplicably built up around them.

_Oh, that was really perfect. On top of everything else._

"Huh." He repeats, his tone feigning indifference. Unluckily for him, Maka's starting to become able to see through his fake apathy.

"I guess that's what the madness  _wants_ , for people to let go and give in to their inhibitions." She continues, taking a trembling step towards him. "It makes sense, I guess. Stein's madness causes him to go haywire and want to experiment on everything, no matter the consequences." Her olive irises stare so intently into his, he wonders for a second if she could read his mind just from her gaze. "Without the madness, he's able to suppress his desire for experiments and dissection." Her eyes drop to the floor and he notices her cheeks are suddenly tinged red.

_She's clearly been thinking about this in too much depth for his liking._

"What do you want me to say?" he asks dryly, his guard remaining firmly in place.

_That kissing you is to me what dissection is to Stein?_

_How romantic._

"I want to know why you didn't just tell me…?" her question trails off and lies unanswered in the space around them for a few moments.

"Tell you  _what_?"

She changes her question. "When you said the other day, that you had known what was going to happen if we Resonated at too high a frequency…? What did you mean by that?"

Soul frowns, trying to remember. "I guess I could feel the black blood spreading. It wanted… you." He tries to explain hopelessly. "Something in me; I can't explain it, it was trying to take you over. Like… like Ragnorak did to Crona," he shudders theatrically.

"And the kiss? Did you know that part was going to happen?" she asks, surprisingly candid.

_What's her point?_

He hesitates. "Not as such, no." he looks back at her. "Why don't you just ask what you want to ask, Maka?" he seems annoyed, now, pinching the bridge of his nose as if he's got a headache coming on.

_Yeah, a headache called Maka Albarn._

"Fine." She glares. "Do you regret it? What happened on the mission?"

_Can she really be that dense?_

"Yes!" he responds, showing how tired of this conversation he is. Maka flinches away. "You really don't get it, do you? I could have  _hurt_  you, Maka. I wasn't in control of my actions."

"But you  _didn't_  hurt me, did you?" she comes back, immediately. "When Stein lost it, that was a different story. But when you lost it, all you did was kiss me! So why the hell are you being so cagey about it? Why can't we just talk about it? Was it really  _so_  horrendous and traumatizing for you that-"

"No." he cuts her off, his low voice slicing through her increasing high-pitched tone seamlessly. "It wasn't."

_Well, there it was._

"O-ok." Maka straightens herself, seemingly having gotten whatever response she was looking for. She seems somehow deflated, but he's not done.

"It was the opposite of that, actually." He voices a little uncomfortably, reaching up to superfluously scratch his head. "Which is a little weird, as we were inside my head." He notes, wryly.

"That's right." Maka seems to remember, pausing to consider something. "Does that mean it doesn't count, then?"

Soul blows a small amount of air out his mouth. "If you like."

"OK. Then we can agree on that: it didn't count." She replies, a little too quickly for his liking.

_Ouch. That was a blow to the self-esteem._

He shrugs, throwing his hands in his pockets, feeling full of words but unable to say them. He starts to turn around to leave, but this time the tables turn and its her who pulls him back to their conversation.

"Wait, Soul!" she exclaims, pulling on his limp arm until he's cautiously standing in front of her; her body inching closer to him and her wavelength very gently tugging on his through their resonance link. His mind goes into sudden sensory overdrive, hyper-aware of everything  _Maka_ \- the floral, girlish scent of her neck down to the way her mouth opens ever-so-slightly in anticipation; creeping ever closer to him.

"I  _meant_  that it doesn't count, because our first kiss shouldn't be something you don't even remember properly." She says plainly, before she stands on her trembling tiptoes and places her hands either side of his neck. A pretty blush adorns her features, but she ignores it.

"Maka…"

He's only half aware of his own arms reaching out and wrapping supportively around her as they simultaneously close the gap between them; his previous sensory overload suddenly drowned out by the overwhelming feeling of the warmth of her lips on his.

_Six years of platonic friendship, culminating in two kisses in the span of one week._

* * *

**Nb: They ended up ordering a pizza.**

**AND IT WAS DELICIOUS**


	16. Chapter 16

_What's happening to you, Franken?_

**"Get a grip on yourself."**

_"Drugging your students, that's new a new low even for you…"_

_"What is it, who is doing this to you, Franken?"_

**"You're the worst. Did you really think that a psychopath like you deserved a loving family...?"**

_"Maybe this is all a dream, maybe you're fast asleep and this is all some hideous nightmare..._

_... or is this Asura's madness? I can't tell…"_

**"You don't deserve Marie, she's too good for someone as evil as you."**

**"I need to get out of here,"**

_"I need to get out of here,"_

**_I need to get out of here…!_ **

The voices come at him from every discernible surface.

Stein's body shakes as his hands claw monstrously at his face, his already feeble grasp on reality fading away into nothingness. What remains of his sense of sanity tries and fails to get the mocking voices to stop. The insanity has become so concentrated in the space around him now, trying to differentiate between which thoughts were him and which thoughts were delusions was akin to wading through thick, muddy tar.

They swarm around him, jeering and screaming and criticizing. The hollow emptiness of the dungeon cell he calls home only serves as an echo chamber for the voices to bounce from and back into his mind.

He didn't remember it, not really. The last thing he  _truly_  remembers is talking to Kid. That particular morning, they'd been standing in his office as the man that was almost 20 years his junior told him that he was no longer fit to work at the academy.

Anything since then had been lost to poor impulse control.

Anything since then was like the memory of an observer, a horrifying montage of him driving his own life into the ground, not in control.

Yes, someone- or something- was at the helm of this, that was for certain.

_But why?_

_Why the other night in his house with Marie and Clarence?_

_Why had it wanted him to experiment on Maka and Soul?_

He knows the answer to the second question.

_The Black Blood, of course._

"What do you  _want_  from me?" he grits out to the empty room, his words reverberating back at him as if to poke fun at him for questioning himself. "What do you want with Maka and Soul?" he asks again, not really hoping for any sort of response.

Something answers back, but not with words.

"AAAAAAAAAGH-" his racking screams fill the air, falling to his knees as the piercing feeling of that wavelength resonates through his body again. He feels a fresh new wave of insanity hit him and his screaming morphs wildly into a blood curdling howl of laughter. The walls oscillate this noise back, too, and suddenly the room is filled to the brim with his own taunting laugh. A viscous black smoke radiates through the cell.

Then all of a sudden, one crystal clear voice cuts through all the voices; all the echo.

It's a deep, croaking tone- one which is disturbingly familiar to him.

**_Shut up._ **

**_You're no use to me locked away in that cage like an animal._ **

Stein freezes and his eyes bulge open like he's a fish caught on a hook.

"I can't… I can't… the chains…" he grunts out, lifting his arms up and then throwing them back down with a heavy clank to illustrate his point.

**_You're the DWMA's finest, you can figure something out._ **

The voice _\- or is that just in his head too?-_  jeers back at him.

Stein searches hard in himself for the will to resist but anything he's got left is overcome by this force, and the clarity of mind escapes him. His hands curl into fists and he screams again as he forces his wavelength energy into the solid metal chains constraining his arms.

The black smoke in the room becomes a denser pressure around his wrists, amplifying his wavelength up to eleven, prying open the restraints on his arms. They crack satisfyingly with a metallic splintering noise and fall with a heavy clunk onto the floor.

Stein contracts and relaxes his fists a few times in succession, his crazed smile growing as his wavelength snaps and crackles between his fingers; its almost as if getting used to the feel of freedom again.

**_That's better._ **

**_Now, are you going to thank me?_ **

* * *

"Do you really think this will work…?" a female voice comes tensely into focus, the clip-clop of feet in heels clacking in tandem with the thud of a pair of boots.

The setting is once again the DWMA dungeons, and the voice belongs to Marie Mjolnir, mother of Clarence Mjolnir and girlfriend/long-term partner of Franken Stein(DSc), teacher at the academy and occasional lunatic.

"It worked last time, didn't it?" the gruff voice meets her back. "During your fight with Medusa, it was your healing wavelength that brought him back to sanity." He recalls, clearing his throat. "All we have to do now is find him, and let your magic do the rest."

She can't help but notice that he says the word 'magic' a little sardonically.

_Rich, coming from a literal zombie._

As you've figured out, the other voice belongs to Sid Barrett, no relation to Pink Floyd, member of the undead and everyone's favorite physical education teacher.

"I hate seeing him like this." Marie wrings her hands. "It's not  _him_."

She recalls the last time she had ventured this far underneath the academy. She'd been lost and looking for the exit when she'd been drawn into one of the rooms by Soul's piano playing. She'd asked him about Stein, and he'd seemed unusually cagey.

_Even then, she'd known._

_Had Soul known?_

_Why hadn't she said anything to Kid before it got to this?_

"I know, Marie. It's not your fault. You couldn't have known that this would happen." Sid attempts to be comforting, but his natural gruffness offsets any therapeutic value his words might have. "The academy is well aware of Stein's little… quirk."

_Quirk may be an understatement._

They round the corner together, Marie's fingers still laced around one another in worry.

"He's just in this cell here-" Sid's sentence stops halfway through as the hand he leans on the door causes it to budge open just an inch. "Wait, it's unlocked?" he states dumbly, his face a grotesque mask of shock.

"Are you sure it was that one…?" she frowns as Sid pushes the heavy metal door all the way open with a loud clang.

The room before them is empty.

"He's… he's gone…" Sid growls through clenched teeth, reaching down to inspect the broken chains which lie uselessly on the floor. "But how?!"

Marie's eyes widen in fear and she takes a step backward. Sid continues to stare at the broken locks before him as if his eyes are somehow deceiving him. A gear seems to click in his mind, and the next second suddenly he's up and shouting something into a radio transceiver. "He's loose! He's escaped! Seal the exits and evacuate the school! Marie, let's get out of here." He turns to her. "We need to alert the school before… before something bad happens."

_Please, no._

_How could this be happening again?_

* * *


	17. Chapter 17

Maka lazily reaches up to the cupboard to reach for the cereal.

Transfixed, Soul watches her from the couch. He had been sitting cross-legged and in the process of messily consuming a slice of toast when he had spotted her out of the corner of his eye. It hadn't taken much to draw him away from the sound of the morning news. Now she's  _all_  he's focusing on.

The way her long, silky legs stretch onwards to infinity out of her pajama shorts; the sudden visibility of the small curve of her back as her camisole rides up to her ribs; her strong shoulder blades tensing as she plucks the box from the shelf.

_Dammit, one kiss and now he was obsessed? How uncool._

He must make a noise or something, because her groggy mind seems to twig that he's here and her head whips round in a flash.

"S-Soul!" she stutters. "You're up early!"

He swallows some dry toast.

"So are you."

His eyes stay lazily fixed on her as he observes the fascinating manner in which her blush spreads across her nose; how she self-consciously tugs her shorts down an inch; how she scoffs despite her blatant embarrassment and plops her scantily-clad-self down next to him. As she does, a cloud of puffy white feathers erupts from the cushion underneath her.

"Agh!" she blurts in surprise at the sudden explosion.

"We really gotta replace these cushions…" he chuckles, a little guiltily.

She frowns and brushes herself down to remove the debris. Again; he can't help but stare as she smooths down the silk of her top with her delicate fingers…

_Was she doing this on purpose?_

"What, no food?" he pushes aside his impure thoughts. She relaxes into her usual manner.

" _Somebody_  ate up the last of the cereal and didn't throw away the box!" she bemoans, clearly implicating Soul in the crime.

"How criminal." He smirks. "You must be hungry. I'll make you something," he hums to himself, standing up off the couch and wandering over to the kitchen where only last night, they'd been happily making out next to the pots and pans. "Pancakes?" he asks, his mood still evidently high.

"Sure."

She's watching him, now. She's a keen voyeur of the fascinating way his biceps dance as he stretches his arms up above his head with a resounding 'click'; and his hand which tousles through his messy mop of white hair. They hadn't exactly talked about their kiss, but Maka couldn't help feeling like something was different between them this morning; something had shifted in their partnership. Whether that was good or bad, the jury was still out.

He gets to work, throwing some eggs, flour and milk into a pan and beginning to beat it senseless with a whisk. He always uses his scythe-hand in the kitchen to her amusement, and cracking the eggs is no exception. He does end up with a slightly gooey arm, though.

She giggles, giving away her voyeurism and she goes to join him.

"Did you not sift the flour?"

"I… what?" he frowns, staring down at the gloopy mix he's created. "Is that really necessary?"

"If you don't want lumpy pancakes, yes. Or at least, you need to  _mix_  better." She grabs the bowl from his hands and whisks at double his speed. "Don't feel bad! Handling a whisk is really not that different from handling a weapon." She boasts, only half-joking.

"Death, woman, I want to mix it, not send it into  _orbit_." He mutters at her speeding hand, but begrudgingly busies himself pouring oil into a frying pan and fumbling with the lighter on the gas ring.

"There!" she announces, lifting the whisk up from the mixture, which reveals a goopy trail in its wake. She seems satisfied with herself. He smirks up at her.

"Unparalleled," He rolls his eyes, tossing some strips of bacon from the fridge and into the sizzling pan without thinking.

" _Bacon_! With pancakes!" she exclaims, horrified. "I will  _never_  understand boys." she adds, mock-devastated.

"Don't knock it 'til you tried it," he rebuttals. "And we're not that hard to understand," he flashes her a spiky smile and she laughs, pouring the pancake mixture with a muted 'tss' on top of the bacon.

They watch their slightly Lovecraftian creation turn slowly brown before them in silence. Eventually, Soul reaches the spatula in a vain attempt to scrape the thing up onto a plate.

"Didn't realize it took two perfectly competent people to create one terrible pancake." He remarks. She shrugs and takes the plate over to the couch, where she places a forkful in her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. "…verdict?"

She nods happily.

"The bacon is a little weird, but… it kind of works."

"You know, a fuckload of maple syrup will-" he starts, but Maka groans, shutting him up. "Fine." He rolls his eyes. "Guess you're sweet enough already, hey?" he jokes, his face deadpan.

She snorts. "How aren't you pre-diabetic?"

"Good genes?" he sits next to her and sniffs his magnificent creation. She holds a forkful up to his mouth and he gratefully obliges, giving her a sabre-tooth grin as he clamps his insane teeth down on the fork and munches.

"Yeah, I'll say." She smiles coyly up at him, going so far as to even bite her lip.

In the short span of time it takes her to move the pancake from her lap to the coffee table he's already moved and pinned her horizontally against the couch, swallowing his bite of pancake with a satisfied 'gulp'.

_She's not getting the upper hand, not again._

She gasps in a little pleasant surprise, wide eyes staring up at him. His forearms come down on either side of her neck, and the warm of his body radiates pleasantly though her. He bends his arms a little, causing some of the tendrils of thick white hair to hang down and fold against hers.

"Soul," she half-breathes, half-giggles.

He silences her by flexing his arms and reaching down to kiss her gently on the mouth. It's a lingering, languid kiss which is at odds with the current position he's holding her in, but the second their lips touch they both feel it; a shockwave through their soul wavelengths. She'd felt it only twice before- once in the Black Room, and yesterday in the kitchen. Maka's overcome by a desire to explore his mouth  _more_ , craving a kiss which matches the ferocity of his gaze after he pulls away.

"This okay…?" he pauses to drawl, a little redundantly but nonetheless self-aware.

" _Yes_ , you idiot." She grinningly replies, reaching up to plant another kiss on his lips, but is rudely interrupted by a sudden noise, announcing the existence of a third presence in the room.

"Nya~ I called it!"

 ** _Shit_**.

She freezes in terror, hastily throwing Soul's body off from hers in a heartbeat. He topples ungracefully to the floor next to the couch and rubs his head, scowling at their sudden intruder.

"I  _knew_  that you two were getting it on~" Blair taunts, hopping down from wherever she was perched. "Didn't you idiots realize I've been watching you  _all_  morning? God, the sexual tension in here was unbearable~"

Soul groans and Maka flushes.

"Piss off, cat." He growls.

"You shouldn't be so mean, scythe-boy. Blair-sama is sad, you see. All my attempts at seduction and you'd still rather have  _her_?" she teases, transforming into her human form and making a slight gesture at her own body. Maka feels her jaw tense and she's a second away from shouting at and chopping their household pet, but Soul knocks all the wind out of her.

"In a second." He answers hotly. His brain quickly catches up to his mouth and he feels a pang of agitation.

_Ugh, lame even for you, Eater._

Maka's face turns even redder, and Blair squeals in delight.

"Ooh, you're so  _cute_ , Soul-kun." She places her hands on her cheeks excitedly.

"Why are you still here?" Soul shoots her a glare.

Blair purrs for a second, turning back into her cat form with a 'poof' of magic.

"Fine, fine. Blair-sama knows when she's not wanted." She says with a little pout.

_Demonstrably not._

"I'll leave you two of you alone." She winks at a dumbstruck Maka, sauntering away. "Remember to be safe, though! Blair-sama  _likes_  babies- but only little kitties," she calls back with a snarky laugh and saunters out of earshot.

"That woman will be the death of me," Soul says under his breath, making a face in the direction of the door. They both stay quite still and quiet for a time, until they've heard the gentle click of the cat-flap and then Maka exhales in relief. She looks sheepishly down at Soul, still sitting on the floor space in front of the couch.

"Sorry," she laughs lightly. "About pushing you."

Soul grins.

"Desperate times…" he absolves her with an awkward smile, standing up to stretch out and brush some of the cushions white feathers off the side of his leg.

Maka's still reeling with his words from earlier.

_In a second._

_He'd choose Maka over Blair in a second._

_What did that mean?_

"Soul." She says seriously, and he starts to get a bad feeling about the next five seconds of his life. "What are we doing?" she asks, her voice very low. "We can't keep doing this if we don't even know where we're at,"

He restrains himself from groaning, plucking yet another stray white feather from his person.

_Of all the girly, clichéd conversations for her to start right now, it had to be that one?_

Whatever semblance of an answer he's trying to dredge up from the pits of his soul never makes it to his mouth, though, because before he can answer, Maka's phone on the table starts to make a ringing noise. For a second, he watches her grapple with the idea of not answering it in favor of finishing out their conversation, but her curiosity gets the better of her –  _who calls this early in the morning?_  – and she checks it.

"Who is it?" Soul sits up and narrows his eyes, peering over her shoulder to see Death the Kid's contact details flash up. "What does Kid want with you so early?" he grumbles.

Maka shrugs and presses 'accept'.

"Hey, Kid, is everything okay?" she says into the receiver. "Oh! O-ok." She says, her eyes flittering to Soul as she flies up from the couch in blind panic. Soul goes to her side and waits excruciatingly for some sort of news. "Ok. Jesus. Crap. Yes, we'll be there." She replies. "Thanks, Kid. Bye-" she hangs up the phone, casting a look of horror at a dumbstruck Soul.

"It's Professor Stein." She says simply, her shoulders going limp with emotional fatigue. "He's gone. He's escaped from the dungeons."

Soul can't help but miss his life five seconds ago, when having to define his relationship with Maka was his biggest problem.

* * *

"How? How could he have  _escaped_?!" Maka's angry tone comes sailing through the walls as Marie stands outside Kid's office, ears pricked and listening to the muffled conversation of her juniors. So far she had counted that Maka had asked that question angrily about six times, Kid had formed a vague explanation five of those times, Patty had giggled upwards of fifty times, and Soul had yet to say anything about it at all.

All in all, a pretty classic Shibusen meeting.

"It happened. We can't say for sure what kind of force we're dealing with, here. I'm going to be announcing it to the students today, to make sure everybody is prepared for what might come." Kid says evenly. "I wanted to let you two know firsthand, because you're already involved." Kid clears his throat. "There's something else."

"What?" Maka groans, as if it can't possibly get any worse than this.

"We found traces of black blood in the Professor's cell." Kid reveals. "Since the only other person we know with black blood is you, Soul…" Kid pauses. "We now must seriously consider the possibility that Crona- and Ragnorak- are back."

There's a stunned silence.

_He can practically hear her mind chanting 'I told you so'._

"But... why would Crona be turning Stein against us? After what happened with Asura, I can't believe that Crona would go and do something like that to the academy…" Maka seems perturbed.

"If it is Crona, I doubt he's of sound mind right now." Kid says, gently. "Which is all the more reason why we need to focus our efforts on finding Professor Stein, because if his power is being controlled… there's no telling what kind of havoc that could wreak on the school, not to mention Death City."

"Poor Miss Marie," Liz adds, shaking his head in sympathy.

Maka gasps. "How  _is_  Miss Marie doing?" she asks, suddenly reminded about the unfortunate weapon partner.

Meanwhile, Marie bites her lip out in the hall, deciding not to interrupt.

"Fine, fine." Kid waves her away and Patty and Liz share a look from the behind the desk, as they often do. "I'm meeting with her later. In the meantime, we should all be very careful. Professor Stein or this… thing could potentially attack at any time. Soul,  _you_  need to be especially on guard." Kid nods to his silent friend, who watches him a little moodily.

_He always was._

"Yeah, we'll be careful. But then what? What are we  _waiting_  for?!" Maka explodes.

Kid sighs.

"We can't go after a threat when we have no idea what we're up against." He twiddles his thumbs. "Or even where it might be hiding. Maka, you said you could sense the wavelength. Can you sense it now?"

Maka thinks for a second, and then shakes her head.

"Not right now. It seems to come and go. Sometimes its far away. The closest I've felt it was when we were in Stein's office, but I couldn't see anything." She frowns, seeming frustratedly confused by her own statement.

Kid nods in understanding. "We should keep our eyes peeled until we know more about our enemy. As for Professor Stein… I'm going to send for reinforcements to guard the security of the DWMA and its inhabitants, at least until we've brought him back safely, and he's returned to sound mind."

Maka and Soul glance at each other. Maka's eyes betray that she's annoyed, and Soul's eyes will her to calm down, that Kid's suggestion probably was for the best. He knew her, and he knew that she carried the world on her shoulders; she wanted to save everyone all the time. It upset her that she would have to wait this one out.

Her shoulders slump in defeat and she sits resigned, silent.

Soul jumps in. "Thanks, Kid." he says gruffly. "Keep us posted if there's any news." He says on her behalf, nodding to Liz and Patty.

"Likewise." Kid smiles placidly. "On a lighter subject, are you two still planning on coming to the Shibusen Halloween party? It would be a shame to cancel, but I know you two are under a lot of stress…"

_If only Kid knew that they'd happened to find a great stress-relieving mechanism…_

"We'll try and be there." Soul says noncommittally, his eyes darting to Maka, who agrees solemnly.

"Please do! It wouldn't be the same without you guys," Liz adds, flashing a cheeky smile to the pair. "See you soon, ok? Stay out of trouble."

"Bye…" Soul drawls, and Maka echoes his sentiment as they file out of Kid's office. He's just wondering what on earth has gotten into his meister when they come face to face with Marie, who jumps away from the door as if she's been burned.

_So she was listening in on them, then?_

"Oh. Uh, hi." He greets her bluntly.

"Morning, Miss Marie." Maka chimes.

"Soul! Maka!" she exclaims with the same unbridled enthusiasm that she always seemed to possess. "Wonderful to see you again. Shame that its in such regrettable circumstances." she sighs. "How's that piano practice coming along, Soul?" she asks him, her eyes twinkling with delight.

Maka snaps out of it, staring up at Soul with profound confusion.

"Piano practice…?" she asks, dumbfounded.

_Crap, he'd forgotten all about that._

"For his recital!" she explains to deaf ears. "You must send me the details, Soul. Stein and I would love to attend… when he's all better, that is." She amends, having the good grace to look a little upset. Maka continues to look nonplussed. "I'm just about to meet with Kid, but I'll see you both very soon!" their fake-chirpy teacher excuses herself politely, before stepping into Kid's office and conveniently out of earshot.

Maka turns to face Soul.

"Uh… your piano  _what now_?"

He slaps a palm against his face in embarrassment. "Shit. I totally lied to her about having a piano recital." he makes a face. "Don't worry. It's not important right now." He hisses, linking her arm and dragging her away from the dreaded room.

Maka snorts in wry amusement. "You lied about a piano recital to Miss Marie? What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Look, in my defense, I was  _really_  trying to get rid of her." He rolls his eyes. "I won't bore you with the details."

Maka raises an eyebrow and decides now is a good time to tease him.

"I think you should have a piano recital, for real!" she exclaims with a grin. "What?! You saw how excited she was! And you know that she's upset about Professor Stein's situation. She grins. "In fact, I believe that  _not_  to do so would be extremely irresponsible, not to mention immoral."

" _You've_  cheered up," he notices with a growl, but his expression is soft, betraying that he's secretly relieved of this fact.

She exhales her entire lung capacity at once, and smiles fake-serenely. "Yeah, that cheered me up." She giggles at his mortified response, linking his arm again and dragging him off somewhere. "Let's go do some training, okay? We gotta be strong for whatever happens now. Can't let ourselves get upstaged by Black Star, can we?!"

Soul's repulse at the idea of reciting piano pieces for his friends and teachers is replaced by the more pressing horror of that thought.

* * *

Later that day, Death the Kid himself walks down the sparsely populated streets of Death City, his two weapons in tow behind him. The boy has an air of fatigue surrounding him, his long and difficult day clearly lingering around his aura and seeping into his weary mannerisms. The two girls on either side of him seem unaffected by this. One of them saunters like she doesn't have a care in the world, and the other one bounces along with each step and tries to avoid the cracks in the stones and giggles like an excited child whenever she misses.

"Things are getting real intense around the academy, huh, Kid?" Liz starts up conversation on their long walk back to Gallows mansion. "Hope you're not too stressed. I'm sure things will work themselves out in the end."

Kid's expression tightens around the edges.

"We need to focus on keeping our cool right now. The last thing we want is to lose control, then more people will start getting subjected to the madness." He shakes his head. "I'm surprised that Soul himself has managed to avoid any more incidents." He thinks for a second. "Although, Maka said that it seemed like they were being tested, somehow. Perhaps the test failed, and the tester moved on to a new subject…" he spitballs.

"You mean the Professor?" Liz asks, sending him a weird look. "That would make sense, actually." She shrugs. "Or maybe it's just Maka's soul wavelength cancelling it out for Soul. They work pretty well together in that regard."

Kid nods.

"It's hard to tell for sure what's causing  _what_  right now." He sighs, exasperated. "Ironically, Stein would probably be of some use."

"Hey, cheer up Kid!" Patty clamps her hand down on his shoulder, sniffing the air. "Does anyone else smell donuts?" she asks cheerfully.

Liz sniffs too. "Yeah, I smell it too." she hums. "Must be that food guy over there." She points to a nearby small food truck which is set up along the streets, with two people queueing up to wait for their fried goods. "C'mon, guys. Let's get some. We've had a stressful day, hey Kid?"

"Yay, donuts!" Patty exclaims, clapping her hands together. Kid agrees distractedly, but his eyes are set dead ahead of him.

_Why is that man staring at me?_

Taken at face value, a bit of staring wasn't  _so_  unusual. Kid was in fact a local celebrity in Death City, being the both the fearless leader of the academy and your friendly neighbourhood Shinigami. Plus, he did look and dress a little wackily. It wasn't that uncommon for someone to stare. But he can't help but feel there was something unusual about the way this guy was looking at him, almost as if he was…  _empty_.

"Kid, are you coming?"

Liz and Patty are already standing in the donut queue, but Kid doesn't reply, instead taking several paces towards the odd man.

"Are you okay?" he asks, his voice projecting authoritatively across the street. He doesn't get any response. "What is your problem?" he says again, a little angrier.

Upon closer inspection, he can see that the man is wearing an apron spattered with blood. It's a gruesome sight, but Kid realizes with a start that he's the local butcher. But... his wavelength is all wrong. It's jagged and unclean, two qualities that Kid  _despises_. And it's mixed in with something else, something he can't quite get a grip on.

_What is going on with him?_

_And what's with these wavelengths...?_

"Uh, Kid?" Liz calls, but again he doesn't reply, his eyes narrowing.

"Why won't you say anything?" Kid asks the man again, his voice taking on a suspicious tone.

He steps forward until he's just four yards from the bizarre man, who is still just standing stock-still, looking utterly detached from his surroundings. Kid realizes entirely too late that the man has had his hands behind his back for the entirely of their encounter, when he suddenly lurches his arm forward, revealing a bloody, dripping butcher's knife clutched in his palm.

Kid steps back in shock.

"What do you think you are doing?" he asks again. "As a grim reaper, I  **order**  you to stand down."

"Kid…?" Liz says again, a little more insistently. Kid finally looks away from the man, about to tell Liz to hold on  _just one second_ , when he sees another disturbing sight, and presumably the thing that Liz was yelling at him about. The man at the donut stall; the two people queueing. All three of them hold the same vacant, deranged stare.

_And just what the hell is going on here…?_

The butcher man finally initiates a response in the form of a low and disturbing chuckle, before he takes one long, dragging step towards Kid. He looks very much like a marionette driven by a drunk puppet-master.

Kid doesn't have time to grab Liz and Patty before the aggressor swings back the bloody knife with every intent of sticking it into Kid's neck.

Even without his weapons, Kid is a prodigy- he dodges the attack cleanly, swiftly and effortless twisting the offending appendage round behind the man's head. The knife drops to the floor with a clatter. His extensive training urges him to twist the mans head off, but his something in his instincts tell him otherwise. He keeps the man still, not letting go his grasp.

"Patty! Liz!" he calls for his weapons.

A few yards adjacent of him, Liz and Patty are slightly less successfully holding off the three staring civilians from earlier. One of them, a large man who was previously queueing for donuts- has his hands around Liz's neck and another has a pocket knife held to her throat. Meanwhile, Patty is having a sparring match with the final one. By the sounds of her giggles, it's a  _very_  amusing one.

Kid swears and throws the first man onto the floor in disgust, running over to his weapons.

"Patty, transform now!" he commands, and she does so hastily. He quickly fires two shots precisely at the two men on Liz, who fall down. "Liz!" he calls, once she's free. She nods and transforms into his hand in tandem. Finally armed with his two twin pistols, Kid fires several shots at the woman who was throwing punches at Patty and then turns his attention to the butcher, who has staggered up to his feet and is approaching them, fast.

He senses something from a small distance away.

_There's others coming, too._

"What are you doing, Kid?! We can kill these guys  _easily_!" Liz demands, in her gun form.

Kid grits his teeth. "We can't kill them. Can't you sense it? Someone is controlling them. They're innocent." He replies, firing a few more shots. "We need a suppressing wavelength. Charge the resonance, but not fully." he authorizes. "We need to send these guys to sleep." He spits out.

"They don't look very  _innocent_ ," Liz says sarcastically, but the weapons obediently do as their meister commands and the trio begin to resonate weakly. Kid's soul expands by a few yards and his forearms transform with a snap into his trademark arm-cannons.

"Bond is stable. Resonance rate is twenty percent." Patty calls. "Twenty-five percent." She corrects.

"That will do," Kid says back, before he crosses his arms and fires the force of his wavelength up in the air. The blue shockwaves burst violently through the sky. The sheer power of it oscillates outward as well as upwards in collateral, sending a strong frequency to his attackers which continues onwards for several blocks.

_That should about do it._

"Stop resonance," he commands. His usual arms transform back into existence, and his twin weapons shrink into pistols once again. He inspects the ground ahead of him, the air still suffocatingly thick with the result of his wavelength combined with an as-yet-unidentified dimpsy black gas.

One, two, three,  _four_  unconscious bodies lay on the ground in front of them, effectively subdued. His weapons transform back into their human forms and share a perturbed look.

"What the hell was  _that_?" Liz chokes out, still reeling.

Kid walks a few paces forward to kneel on the ground, inspecting something he spotted out the corner of his peripheral vision. Crouching, he curiously brushes his pointed index finger along the ground and rubs the substance in between his fingers. "What's on the ground, Kid?" Patty asks.

"It's blood." His face falls into a grimace, as the dark smoke around them begins to dissipate into nothingness. " _Black_  blood."


	18. Chapter 18

"I can't believe you didn't dress up for Halloween, Soul!" Patty blows air into her cheeks while reproaching her friend. Soul finds it difficult to take her seriously, given the massive puffy blue wig and stripy all-in-one she's donning. "You're such a buzzkill."

"At least we came. Maka didn't really even want to be here." He points out with a shrug, taking a regretful sip of his punch. He had been standing by the drinks table alone, watching the bizarre party unfold in front of him until Patty had snuck up behind him to offer her admonishment.

It's twelve o clock on the 31st of October, and everyone over the age of 16 is gathered together in Kid's expansive gothic mansion for the long-awaited Halloween party. Given the nature of the city, Halloween was, needless to say, a big deal for Shibusen. The lights are low and all around them, students in garish, monstrous costumes swan around; spilling drinks and talking to friends as upbeat music blares. The atmosphere is more animated than it has been for the past week and Soul thinks its more animated than it has a  _right_  to be, considering the circumstances.

"Why not?" Patty asks, popping a potato chip into her mouth and crunching down on it happily. Soul looks at her inquisitively, like she might be a little stupid.

"Patty, something is turning everyone mad. Over  _twenty-five_  innocent townspeople have been thrown in the dungeons this week, and Professor Stein is still MIA." He lists in a dead voice. "She's not exactly in the mood," he suggests lightly, but Patty is already shaking her head in disagreement.

"Exactly! We should be keeping spirits up! Everyone's been so down-in-the-dumps this week, especially Kid. Isn't it about time we had a little fun?" she points over to Kid, who is gesturing wildly to a couple of engrossed NOT students with an enthusiastic smile on his face.

_Probably regaling them in some dramatic story of a hard-won battle._

"See? Kid's telling those students about the time he dropped a bag of coffee and the beans spilled in a perfectly symmetrical way!" she giggles. "Which means he's in a good mood!"

_Right, right._

"And look at Maka! She looks happy, doesn't she?"

Soul's eyes flicker up and he spies Maka across the makeshift dance floor, being dragged around by her beaming Papa and generally looking as if she'd rather be strapped down on an anthill than be here right now.

"Not exactly," Soul comments dryly. "Who invited Spirit, anyway?"

Patty doesn't reply, rather squints her eyes narrowly at the dichotomy of the father-daughter combo.

"Soul, what exactly is Maka dressed as?" she asks, making out a white dress with words scrawled all over it.

_A Freudian slip. A slip dress covered in Freudian language._

_She's dressed as a nerd, basically._

"Who knows." Soul sips his punch distastefully, staring into the middle distance and absently thinking that he'd very much like to rip that wordy-dress off her with one swoop of his scythe-fingers. He pushes the thought away, and doesn't say anything else.

Patty emits her signature carefree giggle. "I'd better go and save those students from Kid," she excuses herself. "Stop moping, Soul!" she leaves him some sage wisdom before she flounces away, skipping as she goes towards the group of people. Soul watches her leave; his face a mixture of amusement and genuine admiration.

He empties his red cup into his mouth with a gulp and places it down on the table, wondering to himself  _why_  he had chosen to sip from a cup of dubious punch instead of one of the glasses of tempting red wine which were so beautifully arranged on one of the table tops. He's thinking about going to get one, when he's rudely interrupted by a hyper-active and presumably tipsy Black Star.

"YAHOOOOO!" the voice comes sailing down as Black Star barrels towards him excitedly. Soul wonders if it was possible that he's  _more_  energetic when he's drunk.

_Wasn't alcohol supposed to be a depressant?_

"Hey." he says back with a nods. "Having fun, Thor?" Soul asks somewhat sardonically, referencing Black Star's costume of choice.

"Yes, except for the fact that god damn  _Ox Ford_  is stealing all of my… my thunder," he finishes. "And I'm supposed to be GOD of thunder! What the hell, Ox?!" he bemoans, slamming his hammer down on the table in annoyance.

"Careful with that, Marie might have to have a word if you break it," Soul grins slyly. "What is Ox doing to piss you off, anyway?"

Black Star flies into a rage again. "He only went and dressed as bloody ZEUS!" Black Star yells out in annoyance, his head flinging round to glare across the room at his most recent rival, who is careening around without a shirt on, shooting lightning bolts around the place and generally being a nuisance. "Jokes on him, though, because in the movies, Thor's a WAY bigger star." Black Star finishes smugly, grabbing a cup of punch and chugging the thing.

"You look like Maka in that blonde wig, anyway." Soul comments with some amusement, causing Black Star to rip the thing off his head unceremoniously and reveal his natural electric blue. "You decided not to match with Tsu," he adds, cocking his head sideways.

"Yeah, she kept asking me. But all the couples costumes she came up with just weren't big enough stars." Black Star shrugs.

"Couples…?" Soul's mouth twitches upward in a laugh.

Black Star splutters. "I mean, like,  _partners_! Not couples!  _Gross_ ," he's quick to defend. Soul doesn't delve too deeply into it. "Anyway, it can't be helped. Perhaps I'm just too godly for any costume at all, y'know?"

_Perhaps that was the problem. Poor Tsubaki._

"Speaking of which. Why are you being so  _boring_  tonight?" Black Star gestures to his lack of costume. "You've been stuck here in the corner since we arrived. Come and join in the fun! Maybe if we have more to drink we might play spin the bottle or something, wouldn't you like that?" Black Star wiggles his eyebrows suggestively and elbows him in the stomach. When Soul makes a face, he erupts in a laugh. "Oh wait, you'll only play if  _Maka's_  playing. And it's just the two of you. And there's no BOTTLE!" Black Star cackles ceremoniously, making smoochy faces.

He knows better than to respond but does decide that he wants that glass of wine after all.

"I'm fine here." He sips at it, demonstrating his point, but his eyes are fixed on Maka. Black Star follows his line of vision and frowns at his friend.

"Hey Soul, did Maka ever stop being a bitch about that Resonance thing?" he asks. "Because, y'know. You moved back to your place. I figured you'd sorted it."

Soul wonders what to tell him. They hadn't really tried to match Resonance wavelengths at a particularly high frequency since that mission where he'd lost it. Sure, there'd been training sessions. Resonating at a lower level was fine, as long as he kept a tight grip on his morality.

Maka was obviously still troubled by the whole thing, and she'd been training harder than ever this week. Two hour runs, extended gym sessions, spending all her free time studying in the library. She was stressed, that much was heavily indicated.

Not to even mention the weird and wonderful lines their relationship had crossed this week. Not that Soul was complaining, but he had spent a disproportionate amount of this week making out with his meister and very little time actually speaking to her about it. As it stood, he had literally no clue where  _her_  head was about the whole thing, and he was loathe to begin that discussion, knowing that  _talking_  about it came with the very real risk of  _ending_ it _._

And for all his blissful ignorance, Soul knew one thing: he didn't want it to stop.

_No, we still can't resonate but it's okay because now we're sucking faces on the reg?_

_Death, Black Star didn't know how right he had it when he'd joked about spin-the-bottle._

"Uh… it's fine. Mostly." He drawls, his face displayed a complex picture of emotions. Luckily, Black Star's strengths didn't lie in his ability to understand the subtler nuances of speech, so he accepts it as blunt fact.

"Cool!" he exclaims. "By the way, how great is this punch?" he sloshes a cup around in his fist. Soul grins up at him, and begins to say something before he's interrupted.

"If you like  _punch_ , I can definitely help you with that!" the voice says, smug with their own joke as she butts into their conversation with ease.

"Psh, yeah RIGHT! You'll have to CATCH ME FIRST! YAHOOOO!" Black Star hastily pours the rest of his drink down his throat and then runs the fuck away, dodging through costumed people and leaving a trail of disgruntled partygoers in his wake.

"Do you think he realizes that I'm not chasing him?" Maka stares after him, nonplussed.

"Who knows." Soul utters his catchphrase and then smirks. "How did you get rid of  _daddy_?"

Maka shudders theatrically. "He saw someone in a nurses costume." She shakes her head. "I guess I should be relieved that it wasn't a schoolgirl," she comments, and they both make disturbed faces at one another. "Anyway, other than that painful interlude, tonight has been… fun." She manages a smile. "Kid throws a good party, don't you think?"

Soul nods and hums, and Maka grabs him by the arm. "C'mon, you've looked miserable all evening. Don't you want to dance? You forget, I  _know_  you can dance! And it's good for matching soul wavelengths!" she reasons, dragging his arm and pulling him unceremoniously closer to the source of the music and into the crowd. His face is one of genuine horror but she just laughs and places her hands on his shoulders, silently posturing that he should lead.

_Why's she so eager for this?_

For the sake of preventing his poor feet from being trodden on, he obliges.

"See?" she smiles softly as her ash hair falls against his knuckles. "It's nice." she relaxes into the movements.

"Your hair is so long." He comments, realizing that she hasn't worn it down in ages.

"Should I cut it?" she asks, tossing it back as they sway gently to the beat of the anonymous music in the background. He shrugs and clears his throat.

"It's not up to me."

"And if it  _was_?"

"I like it either way." He keeps his answer short and to the point. "You look nice." Soul didn't give many compliments, so she takes what she can get.

"So do you. Although, you could have done with a costume, I think."

"My actual face is basically a Halloween costume," he retorts, taking a hand away from her waist to gesture at his visage with a low chuckle and then returning his hand. Maka shakes her head sadly.

"It is not!"

"I have demon eyes, shark teeth and white hair, Maka." He rolls his eyes at her sensitivity. "Not to mention, my body is patched up like one of Stein's experiments, and the occasional scythe blade poking out of me." He levels her with a look. "Like it or not, I am terrifying."

"You aren't remotely scary."

"High praise," he remarks, coolly. His eyes don't quite meet hers.

"I mean it. You're too… handsome." She wrinkles up her nose before finding the right word and then looks embarrassed immediately after she finds it. She makes a noise of frustration, looks up at his face, which smiles down at her. He rarely dons that genuine, kind smile and it disarms her every time. She briefly wonders when he got so much taller than her. When they were fifteen, they were the same height, and frankly, she didn't think it was fair.

_She's definitely at least a little drunk, then._

He realizes with a jolt that their souls are resonating together when she inches closer to him.

"What are you doing?" he asks.

"Come  _on_ , you can't suddenly be shy, Soul?" she reasons.

"Not here." He glances round at their company and briefly wonders how much she's had to drink tonight. This was startlingly out of character. "Are you…"

"Nobody's watching," she brushes him off, standing up on her tippy-toes and moving her face so close to his that their noses brush. He doesn't move away but his hands tighten on her waist so as to hold her up, because she's beginning to feel a little off-balance.

**_Someone whose main hobby is swinging round a heavy scythe shouldn't be having so much trouble with their balance, should they…?_ **

Soul hears the demon's taunting voice come into focus to utter those words and in the moment of shock, he pushes her. In his defense, it was a very light push, but in her apparently  _more-inebriated-than-he-realized_  state of consciousness, she stumbles back a few paces and falls to the floor, looking stunned and confused.

"Soul…?"

He's frozen in place, staring helplessly at her as his mind races to catch up to recent events.

_Why the hell is the ogre back? Why now?_

**_And you were so close, too._ **

_Get out of my head!_

**_You should be thanking me. I'm the one that started all this, in the first place. If it hadn't been for me, you'd probably still be pining after her from afar. Pathetic, really._ **

A few people around them start to send funny looks. After all, from their perspective, it looks pretty bad, Soul having just essentially shoved Maka to the ground. Maka herself has scrambled up from the floor but is no longer looking at Soul. She suddenly has more pressing concerns. Instead, her eyes are closed, and her mouth is open in concentration.

"Fuck, Maka, I don't know what-" he starts to say.

"Shush." She cuts him off. "It's here." She pauses for another bout of soul perception. "It's so  _strong_. Soul." She opens her eyes. "We need to get everyone out. Can you imagine…?" she starts to ask, but Soul's breathing is becoming laboured and difficult and he squats down to the floor, eyes clamped shut. She flies to his side. "Soul, are you okay? Can you control it?" she asks.

People begin to crowd around, many of them unaware and wondering what has just happened. The few people in the room who can sense soul wavelengths are starting to cause separate groups of reactions in the crowd and somebody turns off the music. The buzz of the confusion only increases, spilling over into mild panic around them. Maka blocks it out and hears only her partner, who is wincing on the floor.

"For now," he grits out through his teeth, suddenly having to grasp for his sanity like it's his lifeline. Somebody turns on the lights, but it doesn't make a difference because the familiar black smoke has started to increase in density around them, superficially darkening the atmosphere.

"Everybody needs to get out, now. If you stay, you might be in danger. Please, everyone, I apologize for the inconvenience." A voice that Maka vaguely recognizes as Kid's calming tone begins to hurry the dazed and panicked group of people out, aided somewhat by Liz and Patty shouting orders. Maka wonders why Kid thinks it's any safer outside but answers her own question: the feeling of the wavelength is so intense here; so cloying trapped in this room. Soul stays crouched, as if it somehow helps him to keep a grip on himself. Maka stays by his side, but Tsubaki weaves her way through the crowd and locates them.

"Maka, what's happening?" Tsubaki asks quickly. "Is Soul okay?"

"I don't know." She says honestly, her heart fluttering. "Soul, please," she begs, though she's not sure what exactly she's asking for.

"I'm trying." He spits, fingers threatening to break cracks in his skull from how tightly he's holding it.

**_It's no use, you know._ **

_Shut up. What do you know?_

**_I know more than you, if you think you're going to stay in control. And so does Ragnorak, which is really saying something._ **

_Wha… what? Ragnorak…?_

**_Just give in._ **

"Mak…" he vainly attempts to tell her something, but he's lost it now, the dregs of himself. He feels himself being dragged down: the flickering waves of insanity which tickled at the base of his neck now surround him as he's pulled under. The last of him falls as he feels his body become a puppet to a force he no longer understands.

_Rag…ragnor…_

_R-r…_


	19. Chapter 19

Four things happen consecutively in the space of five seconds.

Firstly, Soul's eyes close as Maka watches him lose the battle for his wits. She grips him tighter.

Secondly, the room shakes with the sound of outrageous  _screaming_  laughter. It's a voice which jogs a specific memory in Maka, though it's a distant memory. It takes her a few more seconds to place it.

Thirdly, a huge red and black blade erupts from Soul's chest and aims straight for Maka's torso.

Fourthly, and most pressingly, Tsubaki pulls her friend away from her unconscious partner in the nick of time, preventing said blade from piercing Maka's heart.

It's a whirlwind of activity punctuated by a few screams as now-fully-panicking partygoers continue to stampede out of the room, led by a frantic Kid, whose grip on reality is also being somewhat tested by the persistent white noise clouding his brain. Liz and Patty are long gone; replaced by their silver pistol counterparts who lie dormant in their meisters hands.

"Maka, resonate with him! NOW!" Kid insists.

Maka tremblingly looks around her at the shaking room.

_The laughing, what is causing the laughing?!_

_It's the smoke…!_

_Why does that voice sound like Ragnorak?_

"CRONA!" she yells out through the metaphysical and literal fog. "CRONA?!"

The laugh only seems to get deeper, rumbling lower and lower.

She stands to her feet at around the same time that Soul does- or, whoever this was in front of her. His eyes are dead and his face is empty except for a wide smile as he cracks his neck and stares straight at her.

"Soul…?" Tsubaki calls worriedly, but Maka knows Soul's not there.

"Get out of his head,  _demon_." She spits furiously. "I will kill you myself."

 **"Not without him. You're not strong enough."** the ogre warns through Soul's lips. Tsubaki's eyes widen in shock at hearing such a foreign voice coming from her friend.  **"It's been so long since I've been this free. Not since Asura."**

Even the name sends shudders down the spines of those still unlucky enough to be in the room. His forearm transforms and he lunges forward in an attack on Maka, but he's not quick enough- in the second it takes him to reach her, Black Star is suddenly on the scene, wielding Tsubaki in her formidable demon sword mode and clearly ready for battle. In spite of the situation, Maka finds herself oddly transfixed by the idea of Black Star battling in full Thor get-up.

The next few seconds are a clash of sword and scythe as Soul's attacks keep coming fast and intense, and most of all unpredictable. She vaguely remembers Stein saying that the black blood had the ability to unlock power and agility in its owners, if you fully gave yourself up to it.

_Does that mean Soul's gone?_

There aren't many people left in the room, now. Kid has managed to funnel people out, out, out. He's seen first-hand what this brand of madness can do to people, just ordinary people. Let alone a group of the strongest weapons and meisters at the academy. He's just lucky that weapons and meisters-  _most_  of them, anyway- tend to be less susceptible to outside influences. One notable exception to that rule stands a few yards to his right, scythe blade swinging round; unconstrained and indiscriminate.

"Maka!" a desperate voice calls out, hurtling towards the violent scene. "Maka, are you okay? I saw what happened. Did he hurt you?"

"I'm fine, Papa," Maka looks up at her red-haired father, his comforting hand resting on her shoulder as they watch the fight unfold in front of them.

Tsubaki's blade meets Soul's arm with a jarring noise as they push against one another angrily and lock in a battle of strength. Maka's eyes widen in fear as Soul's blade overpowers their resistance; shatters Black Star and Tsubaki's soul resonance into a thousand pieces.

 _Soul is…_  stronger _than Black Star?_

Black Star doesn't flinch. "Tsubaki, chain scythe mode." He says, eerily calmly. In a flash of white geometric shapes, she becomes his bidding. Tsubaki yells something out and Soul's smile grins wider in glee. His scythe-arm is outstretched in readiness, but he doesn't go to attack Black Star.

_He's heading for her._

"Papa!" Maka cries out, but somehow her father already knows. You weren't Lord Death's personal weapon for years unless you knew a thing or two about battle instinct, she supposes. He transforms into his impressive weapon form immediately into her arms and she throws the handle outward with every last drop of her might, blocking Soul's forceful arm with about a millisecond to spare. Her skin prickles and a bead of sweat drips from her face.

_Why is he going after her?_

_Thank Death for familial soul bond._

She feels the weight of Spirit's death scythe in her arms. He's powerful, but so is Soul, and Soul has the black blood advantage on his side right now. Black Star is standing to the side, his ninja sword drawn but not attacking. She can feel through her soul bond with her father that he's just itching to  _attack_  instead of these defences they keep throwing, but she can't.

"We can't hurt him, Papa," she practically whispers to him, in between her almost constant dodges.

"I know." He grits. She can hear how much this fact pains him, being forced to go easy on the thing that was currently trying to cause his daughter harm. "Keep going, don't slow down." He instructs her.

"Maka, keep him occupied. I'm going to trap him." She hears another voice; Black Star, take command of the situation. He races round the room in several flashes as Maka struggles to defend using her father against such an unpredictable opponent. She loses all track of where Black Star has got to, and feels her movements start to flag when she feels a hard slash of scythe metal lick against her upper arm, tearing open her jacket and the skin underneath. She distinctly hears herself cry out in a moment of pain but doesn't have time to linger on the feeling before her father forces her to keep up her defences.

She hears the rustle of something darting around them as Black Star enacts his showy move, a sequence of chains set in motion, forming the shape of a pagan star which closes in on Soul. As the chains become tighter, he can't move and he's restricted, and then when Black Star does a final tug on his weapon; he falls to the ground; bound and held in place. He struggles against the Tsubaki's chain scythe mode for a couple of seconds before his body falls limp and he seemingly gives up. Mini blades break out in his skin from every gap in his restraint but he can't free himself.

Maka breathes heavily, watching with guarded eyes. Soul is still now, or the hollowed-out inhabitant of her partner, anyway. His crimson eyes meet hers and burn with such an intensity that she's forced to avert her gaze.

"How long can you hold him, Tsubaki?" Kid asks, and its only now that she realizes he's been patiently present this whole time.

"Long enough." Black Star answers for her, gripping tightly onto the ends of the chain in place. "Kid, what now?"

Maka's breathing is heavy and erratic and she welcomes the temporary reprieve from fighting. She isn't used to wielding her father. It was so much more exhausting with so little experience and practice, and despite their familial soul bond, it didn't come easy.

Spirit transforms back into his human form. "We need to transport him somewhere safe." He steps in before Kid can reply. "The dungeon." He says purposefully, to which Maka's heart immediately leaps into her chest.

"Professor Stein already managed to escape. There's no telling whether Soul, in this state, might be able to do the same." Kid shakes his head, hesitates before adding: "I'm sorry, Maka. He will have to go in the secure cell. Medusa's cell. Just for the time being."

"No!" she screams out, balling her fists. "You  _can't_!" The sudden outburst from Maka causes everyone to turn to her rather sharply, including the perpetrator himself, from within his shackles. "You can't put him in the dungeons. It's  _Soul_." She half-sobs, reaching out her arms towards him in an ill-advised moment of empathy for her poor weapon. As her arm outstretches, she remembers her injury- the blood streaming down her arm and dropping onto the floor.

Soul blinks up at her as she kneels beside him and wraps her arms around him.

"Maka, it's too dangerous!" Tsubaki yells out from her chain form as Spirit makes a fruitless attempt to pull her back.

"He could  _hurt_  you, Maka, he's not himself right now." Her father says worriedly, gentle warning in his voice. "You should get back."

Soul doesn't move a muscle as Maka spills her own crimson blood all over him, refusing her father's advice.

_They're right, he could hurt me right now._

_So why isn't he?_

_A second ago she was enemy#1 but now he's just lying there?_

"Soul?" she calls, her voice full of hope. The same eyes as before meet with hers, but they aren't ferocious anymore- now, they're exhausted. He doesn't struggle, but instead drops his stare to her wounded arm.

"Maka," he coughs out, so quietly and sadly that only she can hear. "I hurt you."

_Thank death._

"Soul," her voice is reduced to just a relieved sob as her head falls onto his bound shoulder. "It's you." She smiles through her tears and she looks up at her father. "Papa, it's him. He's fine. He's back." She says, then looks at Kid. "See? He can  _stay_." she says tentatively; searchingly.

Kid and Spirit glance at each other meaningfully, but neither of them is the first one to speak. Instead, the voice comes from next to her.

"No, I  _can't_. I don't want to hurt you." He groans, obviously in some kind of substantial pain. "Kid," he chokes out, a little louder. "Please."

Kid looks at Soul with sympathy evident in his features, and as he nods back at his friend in agreement, Spirit envelopes Maka in a hug meant for half comfort; half restraint. Tsubaki transforms partly and releases Soul's legs, so he can stand up with a little difficulty. Maka struggles against her father to get to him, but Spirit continues his death-grip on his daughter.

"You'd better go  _quickly_ , Kid." He says darkly. "Tsubaki, keep him in those chains." He adds, and when Maka shoots him a wounded look, he tries to explain. "We don't know if it might happen again. He's dangerous right now. The last thing we need is another missing person. Maka, we have a duty to protec-"

"No! He's NOT dangerous!" she yells out, pushing against him. "You  _can't_ ," her head whips round. "Kid. Please."

Black Star speaks to his friend. "Soul, man. I'm sorry. You gotta come with us to the academy." His voice is filled to the brim with regret, but Soul seems to accept this.

"I'll drive, I haven't had anything to drink," Kid offers. "Black Star, Tsubaki- please assist me. Spirit, Liz, Patty… I would ask that you stay here with Maka." He turns to the sandy-haired meister in question. "Maka, please forgive me. We don't exactly have a choice."

She shakes her head frantically, still fighting against her fathers grasp.

"Soul!"

_No, no. They can't take him._

He doesn't resist as he's dragged outside by unwilling captors. It's only when they hear Kid's car start up and hear the engine fade away down the road that he releases her.

"Maka, come and stay with me, tonight. You'll be able to visit him first thing in the morning." her fathers voice barely registers in her defiant ears.

_Soul..._


	20. Chapter 20

"It's your turn."

"Okay, okay. Animal, vegetable, mineral?"

"Uh… vegetable."

"Hmm… is it edible?"

"No."

"What? How can a vegetable not be  _edible_ , Soul?"

"I thought vegetable meant all plants…? Anyway, why even ask if its edible if you didn't think that it was possible?"

"Urgh, fine. A non-edible vegetable. Whatever that is. Um… is it poisonous?"

"You ask the weirdest questions. No."

"Oh, ok. So… it's a plant. Would you have one in your garden?"

"Sure."

" _Do_  you?"

"We don't have a garden, idiot! We live in an apartment."

"I meant, like. At your parents' home."

"Yeah, a few… I guess. How does that help? You haven't even met my parents."

"Hah! So now, when I find out what it is, I'll know one more thing about them. I imagine that you can tell a lot about a person from the contents of their garden."

"Hah! Bullshit. Anyway, why do you  _care_?"

"Because. You're my  _weapon_. Besides, you happen to know every intricate detail about my family, including the sordid divorce. It's only fair that I should know about yours. All you ever told me was that you have a brother."

"Mm."

"Quit being so mysterious!"

"…what do you want to know?"

"Like…. what's your mom's name?"

"Marcella."

"Really? She sounds posh. What about your papa?"

"My, uh… not my  _papa_ , hah. My father. And Robert."

"Huh! Marcella and Robert Evans. How come you never see 'em?"

"I moved to Death City when I was thirteen. They never made the effort, and neither did I. Think… black sheep of the family, cliché as it sounds."

"And your brother…? Why don't you see him?"

"Jeez, what's with all the personal questions today?"

"Well, it's not like you have anything else to do…"

"…"

"…"

"Fine, fine! Ugh, Wes… he's a world class violinist. Totally ranks ahead of me in terms of musical ability. He was always pretty cool to me, but… I don't know. Hanging out with him just reminds of all the shit that I left behind. I don't wanna keep looking back, I'm good at other stuff now. And I have you."

"O-oh…"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm a little jealous. Sue me."

"Well then, I'm jealous of  _you_ , having an older brother. Growing up all I ever wanted was a sibling. My mama and papa had me by mistake; they never wanted kids. Not that they didn't love me, though. Soul, you should reach out to your brother. I bet he misses you!"

" _Yeah_ , whatever."

"I mean it!"

"What happened to the game? You still haven't guessed my vegetable."

"C'mon, Sooooul…?"

"You guess my veg and I'll answer one question."

"Three!"

"One."

"Two?"

"…deal."

"Is it a tree?"

"Yup."

"Coniferous or deciduous?"

"Yes or no questions!"

"Fine, fine. Coniferous?"

"Nope."

"Birch,"

"No."

"Oak?"

"Nah."

"Maple?"

"Yeah, that's it."

"Huh, that was pretty easy. What made you think of it?"

"I don't know, I guess I was thinking about those pancakes that I made the other day. And I was thinking that I really fuckin' wanted some pancakes. And then I wanted maple syrup."

"Are you hungry in there?"

"Not really. Aren't you? You must have been sitting outside that door for hours."

"Do you need anything? Like water, or anything like that?"

"No, no. I'm fine, seriously, Maka. You need to quit worrying about me."

" _How_  can I quit worrying when my partner's been locked in a max security cell for the last two days?! I can't believe they have you in there. It's a disgrace."

"I'm not safe to be around."

"Says who?!"

"I  _attacked_  you, Maka. I  _hurt_  you. Fuck. I'll stay in here forever if it means I never do that again."

"You don't mean that."

"I do, actually."

"It wasn't your fault, Soul. Please, I don't blame you, and neither does Kid. Or anyone. You can't blame yourself."

"I fucked up. I should have been more careful."

"…"

"Maka, I'm sorry."

"Don't be!"

"…"

"Have you felt anything, today? The ogre, the black blood? It's all fine?"

"It's… it's been…  _fine_."

" _Please_ , Soul. You have to tell me."

"…there's something. I don't know, it feels like there's something in my blood. It's ready to take control at any moment. It feels like it's just waiting for me to slip up, or for someone to let me out and I'll slip under again. Maka… I'm fighting it, like the whole time. I don't know how much longer I can keep this up."

" _Shit_."

"Yeah."

"I wish I could see you. I wish you weren't in there."

"This is for the best."

"I know, but still. I really _miss_  you, S-soul."

"Ah… it won't be too long. Maka, please don't cry…hey! Remember we had a deal? You guessed my tree. So that's two questions. You gotta not be sad, though."

"O-okay, haha. Fine… I guess… uh. Is Soul your real name? It's kinda weird, y'know?"

"It's Solomon, actually."

"No  _way_!"

" _Argh_ , I can't believe I told you that. Please don't call me that, or tell anyone, ever. Next question!"

"Hah. So, Solomon Evans, son of Robert and Marcella and brother of Wesley. Final question. What's your favorite color?"

"You are  _merciless_ , woman. Besides, you know this one."

"Hah! Is it green?"

"Yup, got it."

"What type of green?"

"…"

"Soul…?"

"Moss."

"Huh…"

"You okay?"

"Pretty tired, actually."

"What's the time? There's no clock in here. Or any windows."

"It's twelve-thirty….. PM."

"It's late. You're yawning. You should go back and get some rest. You still at your dad's place?"

"I don't wanna go back to the apartment without you."

"Isn't Blair around? Or just go back with Spirit. Either way, you need to sleep."

"I want to sleep  _here_. You must be so lonely, on your own."

"Maka…"

"Hmm?"

"Are you falling asleep?"

"Hmm… maybeee…"

"Ugh, Death help me. You need to look after yourself…"

"…"

"Maka!"

"…ugh, what is it?"

"Go home.  _Seriously_. I'm okay."

"Fine, fine. I'll go. I'll come and see you tomorrow, okay, Soul? Please be okay."

"Yeah. See you."

"…"

"Maka?"

"Yeah?"

"…I miss you, too."


	21. Chapter 21

He lifts his hand up. He fills his dying lungs with smoke. He exhales and lowers his hand.

**_I'm waiting, professor._ **

"I've been waiting, too. I've been waiting a little while, now, to find out what exactly this whole little thing was about, and I must say. I'm disappointed."

**_Disappointed…?_ **

"Petty revenge on the academy? What a boring motive." Stein drawls, each syllable punctuated by another dragging step through the Nevada wasteland. "Even Medusa was more interesting than you. Her modus operandi was chaos."

**_Stop talking about that bitch. She's dead and gone._ **

Stein chuckles, his boots kicking sand here, there and everywhere as he walks like a madman; talking to himself. He's not going in any particular direction, just walking around out in the boondocks. "What does Crona think of all this, I wonder? Is Crona even alive?" he asks, ever the hint of amusement. His insanity is slipping a little, now. He's not sane enough to have a plan, but he's sane enough to at least question his enemy.

**_What do you care, you crazy old man? You're nothing. You're a vessel for me._ **

"You can't fight on your own. Not  _well_ , at least. Not enough to kill the academy students, which is what you're planning. You're controlling people to do your bidding. That means Crona's dead, surely?" Stein theorizes, doing quick thinking in his mind.

**_He's weak. Too weak. Asura made sure of that, before he perished. That goddamned bitch Albarn and the rest of them, weak as ants. We'll destroy them._ **

"What do I get out of it?" he asks the voice in his head, clear as day. Ever the pragmatist.

**_Human experiments._ **

"That  _does_  sound fun." Stein's giggle is akin to that of an excited schoolgirl. He stares up at the beating sun without shielding his eyes and the sleeping, fiery ball scorches his eyelids. He doesn't seem to feel the pain, or at least, he doesn't seem to register it. His pupils shrink to pinpricks as he reminisces. "You and Crona were always the fascinating pair, weren't you. What I wouldn't give… to strap you down on the operating theatre and slice your skin open."

**_Save it for the academy twerps, sadist._ **

Stein snorts. "I think I'll start with  _Kid_. Wouldn't it be so interesting to know the anatomy of a Shinigami? I wonder if it's the same as a human… oh, the  _tests_  I could run with just a drop of his blood. Maybe I could even clone-"

**_You're getting ahead of yourself. Besides, we want to spill all of his blood, not just a drop._ **

"And what will  _you_  do, afterwards?" Stein wonders, finally lifting his arms up to his face to shield his eyes, as if realising he's been looking at the sun for the past fifteen seconds. "Where will you go? You barely have a physical manifestation, and your meister's dead."

**_That's where you're wrong, clever guy. Crona's not dead. Didn't you hear me before? You should learn to listen better. He's weak as piss right now. But once we collect the souls of these kids, we'll become a kishin for sure._ **

Stein coughs out a derisive laugh. As if in response, the vague figure of Ragnorak forms in the dry desert air around Stein and gasps in a single breath of the atmosphere. "Goddamnit, it's too dry for this. Stein, you sociopath. You should be goddamn grateful for me. I'm helping you to do the experimenting you so crave."

Stein narrows his eyes at the vision in front of him, as if losing his mind is something that is only just coming new. He waves his hands in front of his face and the façade of Ragnorak's semblance dissipates and reforms where his hand moves through. It's almost as if he's a creature made entirely of a gas cloud. Stein stares at the troubling scene for a second before he erupts into cacophonous laughter.

"You- hah, you're! You're… gaseous? You turned your blood form into vapor! How interesting."

"What of it? After we defeated Asura, it was how I survived after Crona lost his mind. Most of me still exists inside Crona, so I'm weak, like this. But I can still transform into a weapon, if I need to." he snarls at Stein, who looks one part impressed, one part bemused. He pulls another cigarette out of his lab coat and lights it up.

"That's not your main strength, though." Stein raises an eyebrow, flicks ash and points at his desert companion. "Your madness wavelength. It looks like being locked in that battle with Asura for so long  _really_  had its effect on you. Being so close to him for so long must have driven the two of you completely past the point of sanity, yes?"

"You should quit smoking. You smell like shit." Ragnorak scoffs, not responding.

Stein shakes his head, blowing smoky air out his mouth and dispersing the collection of dark air particles which make up his current tormentor. The false image of Ragnorak's grimacing face disappears into the atmosphere. "You should quit being a cloud of smoke."

**_Vapor, idiot. And don't forget, I can still control you._ **

Stein shrugs, as if testing his captor. "Control isn't really the word. Remove my inhibitions, more like."

_**Is there a difference?** _

"I don't know, I've gotten quite good at keeping myself on lockdown, recently."

**_You just try, and I'll destroy Marie and that little brat of yours. And because I'll do it through you, you can watch them die._ **

Stein's body freezes and his legs buckle under him. Ragnorak's aura is smug; he's found Stein's breaking point. The sand breaks slightly under his knees but remains a hard barrier which sends a shock through him. He kneels there, broken for a minute or two. "I won't resist." He mutters, complying. "Use me, but don't touch them."

**_I don't care about them. It's those brat academy kids who forced Crona to send us to that god-forsaken fucking moon I want to kill. It's their fault we spent months enduring Asura's torture. I'm going to enjoy ripping their weakling bodies apart. And then I want to eat their delicious souls, and become kishin, finally. And Crona will be able to fight with me again._ **

"So… why are you waiting? Why aren't we there, now?" Stein grits out, still keeled over in despair on the desert floor. His cigarette has been dropped; forgotten as its glowing tip dwindles to an end.

**_I need that other one. That Soul brat. He's like you: mad. He's got black blood. I need him, then I can revive Crona._ **

"Soul?" Stein repeats, his voice hollow. He leans down and runs the coarse, hot sand through his callous fingers and staring at it dripping through the gaps with intrigue.

**_It's proving harder than I thought. But, I've almost got him. Be patient. Or don't. It doesn't matter what you do, does it?_ **

Stein remains silent, mimicking a begging position on the floor. All he sees around him is a vast expanse of nothingness, stretching on until infinity. All he hears is Ragnorak's cackle like a drumbeat in his ears. All he feels is the swell and fall of his back as he inhales and exhales the dry desert air.

Until the madness wavelength intrudes upon his mind once again, and quickly stops him from feeling anything at all.


	22. Chapter 22

"If you could just at least get the shackles off your  _hands_ , we could play tic-tac-toe? I could slide it under the door…" Maka groans boredly against the heavy metal barrier which holds her partner. "For Death's sake, nobody is doing  _anything_  about you being locked in there! What are we WAITING for?!" her volume raises a modicum.

"Who knows." comes Soul's indifferent response. It's the fourth day of his imprisonment, and she's beginning to forget what his voice sounds like when not muffled and metallic. Well, not really. But she's close.

"You must be going crazy in there." Maka shakes her head. "And that's exactly what we're trying to avoid. Don't they realise keeping you isolated is just going to make it worse? What are they feeding you in there, anyway? Is it enough?"

"It's not much. But I'm not doing much, either." Soul replies, tonelessly.

"What do you do all day?" she asks him, concern leaking into her voice.

There's a hesitation. "Sometimes I just sit and think. Sometimes I go into the Black Room, play piano. Same old shit."

"Is  _he_  there?" Maka gasps. "The ogre? Does he talk to you?"

"Radio silence." Soul notifies her. She hears a clang of metal and assumes that he's just shrugged. There's a few moments of silence between the two of them.

Outside, Maka's back slides down the door and she slithers into a sitting position, her head resting between her knees in melancholy.

Inside, Soul's head hangs limply between his shoulder blades, his arms held up by thick black iron cuffs and chained tightly to the wall. His legs are free and crossed, folded onto the grimy stone floor.

_They weren't taking any chances, this time._

"Soul, I want to see you."

"Oh, okay. Let me just  _grab_  the  _keys_  and I'll get out of here." he barks back, biting sarcasm making her flinch with every word.

_Ack, cool it, Soul. Getting pissed off at Maka is not cool right now._

She sighs. "That's not the only way, you know that."

"Oh." He pauses, digesting her meaning. "You want to resonate? Now?"

"Would it be too dangerous?"

"I don't know. The ogre isn't around. I can't tell shit from shinola right now." He replies, a little bitterly. "If I try, and something happens, Maka…" he starts, warningly. She cuts him off.

"I'll end it. Promise. I've done it before, and so have you." She closes her eyes and feels for his soul wavelength. She realizes with a pang of sadness how weak and small it is, and grabs hold of it with her generous wavelength, almost coating it. Their souls buzz together harmoniously for a couple of seconds, before Maka wants more. She doesn't say anything verbally but communicates through their bond.

_Increase the frequency…?_

Soul's reluctant reply comes back.

_Okay, boss._

It doesn't take much for her to get into the Black Room. His soul is fragile right now, after being so thoroughly taken control of by Ragnorak. Isolated in his prison cell, his soul was fading even more so. Weapons weren't supposed to be locked away and not able to transform. So: it's easy for her to find her way in.

She appears in that black dress he loves so much, and tears immediately pool in her eyes as she spies him.

"Soul!" She runs towards his crooked figure and throws her arms protectively around his torso as he reciprocates the gesture, a little curved smile on his lips. Neither of them count the minutes as she stays fixed in his warm chest and he remains inexorably trapped in her embrace.

"It's  _you_ ," she articulates, her words getting a little jumbled into his shirt. He laughs.

"Yep." he relaxes when she releases him from her vicelike grasp, and runs a casual hand through his hair. "Gotta say, it  _is_  a relief to have some company." She grins back at him like she might hug him again but seems to decide against it. "Thanks."

She breathes out through her mouth and falls in a sitting heap onto the leather piano stool. "You remember the last time we were both here?"

"Don't  _remind_  me." He groans as if the memory physically pains him. Maka completely ignores this.

"The ogre took over, and you kissed me. For the first time."

"That wasn't really me, you know that." He turns away, his expression clearly exasperated.

"He said they were a reflection of you without inhibitions."

"Right, but have you  _seen_  the crazy shit people do without inhibitions…?" he reasons. "Look at Stein, for example. He's a pretty OK dude, most of the time. Take away  _his_  inhibitions, and he becomes hellbent on dissecting everyone in his path." Soul makes his point. "Or, when Liz gets drunk and gets all annoying and sappy. That's not really  _her,_ right? My point is, people's inhibitions are part of them."

Maka blinks as she takes this information in.

"Right. I see what you're saying, Soul." She nods, her expression blank. "I get it." She steps away from him, to which he frowns at her. "So, what about the other times?"

"Huh…?"

"The other times we kissed." She recounts, a little miserable. "You mean, that wasn't you, either? That was just a side effect from Ragnorak's madness, too?" she accuses, and Soul seems taken aback.

_They're suddenly barrelling towards a misunderstanding, here._

"No, no I don't mean-"

"It's fine, Soul. You should just be honest. We can forget that any of it ever happened." She sighs and then recreates her facial expression, fake-perky. "After this is all over, everything will go back to normal, and all this… weirdness… will end." She smiles.

"I don't… I don't  _want_  that." He shakes his head with a bothered frown. It's always easier to bare your soul in the Black Room. Something about it felt ethereal, and like anything you said here was safe, that it wouldn't be taken back to reality.

Maka hums impatiently. "What  _do_  you want, then?"

"I want things between us to be cool."

"Right…" she looks at him, mystified. "And what does that mean? You want us to be cool? You want to go back to before, when we were just partners and we didn't… y'know,  _kiss_  and everything?" she whispers the word like it's somehow forbidden, now. "Why do you keep changing your mind?"

_Dammit, this wasn't what he wanted at all._

"Ack, Maka. What is it you want to know…?"

"I want to know, Soul." She taps on her leg frustratedly. "I want to know how you feel about me." She asks, folding her arms across her chest in a moment of self-doubt. The question hangs in the space between them and she wonders if she could just reach out and pull it back inside.

_For class valedictorian, she really was incredibly dense._

_Oh, fuck it._

By way of an answer, he steps forward, cradles her head in his hands and presses their lips together in a sudden expression of meaning.

The novel feeling of his mouth crushing against hers stops the world in its tracks for a split second. Her body slams against his as she kisses back, her blood liquid fire as she grasps her fists around the hem of his shirt in an effort to pull him closer still; his thumb rolling across her cheek to her jaw. His fingers tangle inextricably into her long sandy hair as their mouths dance together to a silent rhythm.

They're locked together in a dynamic and desperate expression of all the things that he's too damned inarticulate to verbalise, but he keeps on kissing her like his entire soul depends on it and hopes that she gets the  _freaking_  message.

They do eventually part from each other for air, Maka's heart beating so fast it's becoming the flutter of a hummingbird's wings. Soul's mind is clouded with a rush of endorphins so intense that he actually  _feels_  a little high.

In the time it takes him to take in a gulp of air, she's gathered the clarity of mind and eventually managed to form a string of words together in a sentence.

"You know… not that I'm complaining, but that didn't really answer my question," she points out, eyeing him in a circumspect fashion. His eyebrows twitch up in amusement.

"You should learn to read between the lines," he drawls, staying fixed to her, unmoving.

"So… after this is over, what's going to happen?" she asks, a little doubtfully. "Are you going to feel differently? Are we going to tell people?"

_Given that she's basically all he's wanted since he was fifteen, he seriously doubts he'll suddenly feel any different._

"No, idiot." He settles with. "On both counts." He clears his throat. "After this is over, we'll carry on doing what we do best. Kicking ass and taking souls. You know that." His voice forms a small smile just an inch away from her and his bottom lip twitches like it'd rather be locked onto hers rather than conversing right now. Her moss-green eyes falteringly travel down to his lips and back up to meet his eyes once again. "It's nobody's business but ours, this thing, anyhow." He finishes, shamelessly distracted from his sentence from the way that the dress she's wearing skims her subtle curves just perfectly.

_Man, what he wouldn't give to be free from imprisonment and back at the apartment with her._

"Soul, you should know. I…" she begins to say but struggles to know how to finish that sentence. It was hard, being so awkward when he was busy being all cool and aloof. "I'm sorry this is all so  _new_  to me." She screws up her eyes in embarrassment. "I don't know if I'm doing any of this right. There's not exactly books on it in the library, y'know?" she chuckles, self-aware of how nerdy she sounds right now. "I just… you know I just want things between us to be good. As partners, and as roommates, and friends. And now, whatever  _this_  is." Soul shrugs in indifferent agreement. "I'm trying to say… I want to be careful. Especially with all this craziness at the academy, and you being l-locked away…"

"Fine by me. Let's keep things cool." He responds with an intriguing look on his face.

_Cool was something he could handle. Cool was what he was best at._

_Never mind that when it came to Maka, he often found himself feeling noticeably less than cool._

"Cool…" Maka repeats, trying to channel her inner Soul, steeling herself. "Sounds good."

* * *

_meanwhile_

* * *

In the witches realm, the cobbled, winding paths spin on for hours and hours without ceasing. The pathway is marked only by morbid objects like decaying trees, debris and the odd rotting flesh of the carcass of some animal that was unfortunate enough to cross the path of an angry witch. It's a dusty, dank and deeply formidable scene from a forgotten time; before Asura and before concessions were made and unity between the realms came about. Wherein witches were forced to reside inside the sealed world to avoid detection and being hunted by the DWMA.

Eruka doesn't really mind this place, not so much. She always had a bizarre soft spot for the place she grew up in, and it was made even more enjoyable from the fact that most witches chose to emigrate to the human realm, thus eliminating the aura of danger in the streets. There had been a half-hearted attempt at reconstruction after the realm was unsealed, but memories of the old regime had made things too painful for most witches to want to continue.

In fact the only real reason now to for anyone to come back now, aside from some alone time, was the monthly gathering, heralded by the Grand Witch as a relic from their past and as a way to keep camaraderie between witches alive and well.

These; Eruka didn't enjoy so much. There was something about having snakes forced down your mouth and being buried deep within ones skin that stuck with a person, and despite Medusa being dead and gone, the face of that sly manipulative smirk would probably be burned into Eruka's mind forever. She preferred to hang out with non-witches, her current company excluded.

"You alright, Mizune?" she asks her mousy companion from several feet higher up. "This place givin' you the creeps, yet?" she whispers among the droning voice of the Grand Witch who recites through the recent bulletin.

"Ssh, ssh. Listen." Mizune frowns. "Didn't you hear? She said something about Crona."

Eruka's ears prick up in immediate interest and she tunes in.

"Following the recent reported sightings and that of his demon weapon, the council witches have reason to believe that the return of weapon meister Crona may be linked to a recent infestation of madness in Shibusen."

_Madness, huh? That was some news._

A flurry of hubbub flies across the group of gathered witches (and Mifune, of course) as people rush to absorb the information.

_An infestation? Crona's return? The academy was sure keeping quiet about this._

"I thought it would be pertinent to warn you all that Dr. Professor Stein of the academy is currently under the influence of the madness wavelength and is subsequently missing." The Grand Witch announces with some grandiosity. "I would advise you all to be wary of this extremely volatile man, and if you would, stay inside the realm, where it will be safer. And of course, if you see him- you must report it to either me or Death the Kid in due haste."

Eruka sends a quizzical look to her companion. "I thought Crona was a goner for sure, * **ribbit***. I can't stand that weird kid. Any relative of Medusa's is an enemy of mine, no question." She shakes her head. "Can't believe that that creepy professor is involved, too."

The Grand Witch isn't done, though. "Witches, witches!" she booms, quietening the excited buzz. "Settle down. Prophecies seem to be telling us that there may be an attack, something soon. It is my responsibility to protect all witches of this world. Of course, you are free to do as you please." She adds, with a glint in her one remaining eye. "The possibility of war at the academy is not out of the question. We witches would do well to stay... uninvolved. We don't wish to jeopardize our relations with our good meister and weapon friends. Move  _carefully_ , fellow witches."

_A war…? With Crona at the helm? What the hell was going on?_

* * *

**Basically just a shameless Eruka Frog plug, she's the best**


	23. Chapter 23

Five days in near total solitary confinement will begin to gnaw away at anyone's psyche, let alone somebody with a known predisposition to losing his mind. Soul is, therefore, absolutely no exception to this rule. The only thing that kept him remotely sane during the days had been Maka's long visits, but even  _she_  couldn't stay forever. And the memory of her had a limited lifespan, too.

Without any company and with no knowledge of anything outside the cell, he has no sense of date or time; night or day. With no stimuli, after five days, his thoughts begin to spiral into a dark, self-deprecating and repetitive stream of consciousness.

And that's exactly when he's vulnerable.

_Dammit, what is he doing…?_

_Really? Kissing her? At a time like this? That had to be the most idiotic, stupid, careless thing he's ever done. He's not right in the head. He can't be right in the head._

_It's like he'd just forgotten everything; forgotten the risks that came with being with her right now- everything. He'd resonated with her, and kissed her, and why? Because it **felt**   **good.** Because he'd  **wanted to**. Had it even been him? Or the ogre? As if that was important._

_He really is a selfish piece of shit._

_He'd almost risked everything, three times now. Letting himself turn mad in the first instance. The feeble resistance he'd put up when she asked to Resonate earlier. That goddamn kiss. Having Black Blood wasn't exactly fun- it wasn't something that you would wish on your worst enemy, let alone someone you love._

_Love. The thought is almost amusing, bar the circumstances. As if he could claim to love her._

_His life's ambition was to protect her, yet just five days ago he'd been pathetically unable to suppress the ugly urge to stab her through the chest._

_Never mind that he couldn't remember it._

_Never mind that it was the madness, not him._

_Dammit, he belongs in this cell._

_He needs to be better than this. He needs to protect his meister, stop doing things that actively put her in danger. He need… he needs…_

Soul's wracking coughs which interrupt his thought process deflect off every available surface of the miniscule cage he's kept in and flood back into his ears. The sound is hideous and deafening without any other stimuli.

The air feels thick, almost too thick to breathe.

**_You wanna get out of here?_ **

_No, I belong in here. Don't… I need to stay here. I don't want to hurt anyone._

_I don't want to hurt Maka again._

He's not sure who he's even talking to. His brain spins so wildly, he could be talking to himself and he could be talking to somebody else. It doesn't  _sound_  like the ogre, but- stranger things have happened. Hell, stranger things have been happening to him all week.

He's not even sure it matters, really. He blindly sticks with his gut feeling.

_I belong here._

**_That's no fun._ **

**_You should learn to seize opportunities when they arise. Who the hell do you think got Stein out of here?_ **

One of Soul's eyes cracks open from where his head hangs down; his dirty hair falling in front of his vision.

"Ragnorak." He spits out.

**_Guessed it._ **

"Why are you doing all this…?" Soul asks, trying to catch his breaths through the coughing.

_Now he really was going insane, talking to the air like this._

**_You'll learn soon enough. But before I tell you, I'm going to need a favor…_ **

"I can't do anything for you." He hisses doggedly.

**_Well, that's not quite true. I can do you a favor, first. But then it's my turn._ **

Soul's body tenses up as he realizes what Ragnorak means. "I'm not leaving this cell," he utters adamantly, but weakly.

**_Heh. I'm afraid you aren't going really to have much of a choice in the matter._ **

He shakes his head, scowls; tries his best and gives everything in him to keep the damn voices out,  _out_. Uselessly rages against the force which enters his psyche as he feels that now familiar feeling of himself going under, one more time.

Then; he falls.


	24. Chapter 24

Kid clears his throat, the noise slicing effectively through hushed whispers. "Listen, everyone. I'm sorry to call this meeting of Spartoi here at this time." He references the sleepy, shadowy darkness outside the windows.

"Four in the morning is a bit early to start the work day, don't you think?" Black Star calls out from the crowd, his voice croaky and tired. "What's this about, Kid?"

"I'm getting to that." Kid's gaze moves between rows of concerned, fatigued faces. "Word came in from the grand witch, last night. Pretty soon, the school is going to be under attack." He says grimly.

"Ragnorak's going to attack us?" Kilik pipes up next, his arms folded over his chest in scepticism. "So what? He's  _one_  dude… or two dudes, whatever… going up against all the teachers, you, and all of Spartoi." He shakes his head. "No  _way_  we'll lose. Ragnarok's not even that strong." He finishes. A few people across the room murmur their agreement of this statement. Maka steels her gaze onto Kid, waiting for his next line.

"He's not strong on his own, this is true. But right now, he has the power to manipulate madness. We cannot underestimate this. Most likely, the people in this room will be safe." He reiterates. "But more and more civilians are turning each day, in addition to our very own Professor Stein and Soul."

Maka feels Tsubaki's fingers reach out and touch her lightly on the shoulder; silently communicating her sympathy. Kid continues:

"I know that some of you have assignments, and I recognize that many of these are equally as important as the current threat to the school. Anyone else, I need you to be working round the clock to keep the city safe, as of this meeting." Kid's eyes slant. "Jackie, Kim. I'm pulling the two of you from your usual mission, and replacing you instead with Ox and Harvar. Kim, there's a good chance that we might need your magic. The Grand Witch has informed us that she is  _not_  prepared to cooperate with us in our defensive strategy."

Kim nods fiercely and Jackie clutches onto her arm in solidarity and agreement. "Of course." Comes her reply, and Jackie's too. Ox and Harvar seem to share this sentiment.

"Thank you." He nods. "Kilik, Pot of Fire, Pot of Thunder." He starts. "I understand you're leaving for a mission in Brazil, tomorrow morning. This is too important to miss. Don't lose focus." He pauses. "Spartoi- with the exception of Kilik, Pot of Fire, Pot of Thunder, Ox and Harvar and Maka." he addresses them all. "You are to be on the highest alert level." He warns. "Pending further instruction. Keep your eyes peeled, and your partners close. We are treating this very seriously. All classes are cancelled for the time being, and nobody except those with three-star ranking are to enter Shibusen." He informs his squad.

"So, what's our game plan?" Black Star pipes up. "High alert,  _fine_." He waves his hands, clearly bored. "But what do you want us to  _do_?"

"I'm going to be working with Maka and Asuza to locate Stein and potentially Crona, that's our first priority." Kid starts. "We need to move quickly. We don't want to find ourselves on the defensive."

_Oh?_

"Maka, it's probably best if you stay off the battlefield… without your partner, your soul perception is of greater use to us than your combat skill." He nods towards, and her eyes narrow in frustration.

"I can fight with my father. I should be helping." She says, her jaw tightly clenched.

Kid shakes his head.

"It isn't just that. You and Crona are close friends. Everything right now points to Crona being behind all this, and you need to be careful. Crona… won't be the same Crona you knew. Being locked in with Asura on the moon, we don't know what kind of effects that type of wavelength will have had…" He reiterates. "It's best if you aid us with soul detection, for now."

"But-"

"Your father agreed, as did Asuza and Sid." He addendums, with an air of finality.

Maka's eyes dart to the floor, cheeks burning.

_Her father? Since when was that bumbling idiot an authority on anything?_

_Good thing he was on a mission, currently. She could have murdered him._

"Right now, Stein is our biggest threat." Kid clears his throat in an effort to silence Spartoi. "Our biggest priority is finding him before they launch an attack." He finishes. "Everybody- we're going to be starting training in one hour. Jackie, Kim, Black*Star and Tsubaki- you'll be with Nygus today. Kilik, twins, Ox and Harvar- you'll be with Marie." He lists, and people start to bumble as they get up and scrape their chairs behind them. "Then, the second pair that I read out will switch groups and train with a new pair." He snaps his fingers, once. Then- his gaze settles on Maka. He motions for her to join him and Azusa at the front of the classroom.

She sullenly trudges down the aisles to join them, sans partner.

"What are we doing?"

"Maka, thank you for coming. We're going to be paying Soul a visit in the dungeons, today." Kid announces, clasping his hands together. Maka blinks at him, her confused stare moving from Azusa and back to Kid, slowly turning into recognition.

"Ok…" she nods. "You want me to try and get a read on the madness wavelength…?" She states, steeling up at him for confirmation.

"You've sensed the wavelength a few times now. You know it best- we can use your knowledge of it and hopefully you might able to get a read on where Stein might be." He explains. "Azusa also has a strong perception, but can't seem to locate Stein at the moment. If the two of you could resonate, we might even be able to combine your skills…" Kid finishes.

_He wants her to resonate… with Azusa?_

She turns to the dark-haired Deathscythe with a sceptical look on her face. "Uh… do you know that this will work?"

"We don't know anything for sure." Azusa replies for Kid. "This is a difficult situation- due to the resounding influence of Asura's madness wavelength, none of this is an exact science." She pushes her glasses further up her nose, reminding Maka briefly of the professor. "We are making educated guesses, but we're running out of time and we've had no luck locating the professor or Crona, yet. We still don't even have any real confirmation that Crona is behind all this, bar from Soul's testimony."

Maka follows her two superiors out from the lecture theatre and into the long winding corridors. As they step back, she can hear Jackie getting frustrated with Black Star. "Are you  _trying_  to kill us, idiot?!" she screeches.

"Just because you're not fast enough!" Black Star retorts, and Maka winces at the sound. She doesn't pity Jackie- fighting Black Star could be a thoroughly demeaning experience. He didn't earn the title of stronger meister at the academy for just  _nothing_. Maka and Kid share an amused look; both of them had been on the receiving end of Black Star's wrath before.

Thankfully the three of them soon exit earshot and quickly enter peaceful corridor territory.

"How is Soul doing?" Azusa asks.

"He's doing fine. I checked on him yesterday." Kid answers. Maka sends him a sideways glance.

"It's horrible. He's cooped up in there, nothing to do." She scoffs. "It's inhumane." She sniffs pointedly.

"We all felt it was the safest option. Everyone agreed." Kid sighs.

"I didn't agree, actually." Maka frowns, her expression a little upset as they round a corner. Azusa listens intently to the conversation without adding.

"Maka, even  _Soul_  agreed to it."

"That's not fair, though. You know as well as I do what kind of person he is," she counters.

"I don't know what you mean."

"Yes, you do. He's…" Maka screws up her face, trying to find the right words. "He puts everyone else first." She tries.

"Isn't that the right thing for him to do, if everyone else at the academy is at risk?"

"No!" Maka gasps. "Kid, you...! You  _know_  he would agree to anything, because he feels bad about hurting me." She says, feeling a ever-so-slightly embarrassed.

Azusa and Kid glance at one another, which doesn't go unnoticed by Maka. "What?!  _Somebody_  has to stand up for him…"

"Maka, he attacked  _you_." Kid informs her, as if she didn't already know. Her left arm flickers up to her injured right one, lightly and thoughtfully fingering the bandages which remained. "In fact, it seemed to me as though it was  _you_  that he wanted to kill." Kid adds.

"That wasn't Soul." She grits, angrily.

"Wasn't it? Does it matter?" Kid counters and Maka's clenched fists begin to shake with rage. "We both know that Soul would never hurt you, in normal circumstances. But these are not normal circumstances." he pauses, drawing his sentence out to get his point across. "Even Soul himself can see that, when he's not being influenced. Unfortunately, you are too close to the situation to fully recognize that fact." He feels himself accidentally drawn into the argument, unused to having tension with Maka- a person who usually shared and rejoiced in his pragmatic, logical mode of thinking.

Maka halts abruptly and with an indignant squeal of her rubber soles against the flooring, glaring daggers at Kid. She opens her mouth, as if about to say something else. Azusa spins on her heel and puts a hand on Maka's shoulder, holding her back.

"Kid." The Deathscythe delivers, warningly. "Soul is her partner. That's enough."

Kid doesn't say another word all the way down to the dungeons.

Azusa was one extremely commanding woman, with one hell of a tendency to take control of a situation which was quickly spinning out of it. Shinigami or not, Kid was no exception to that.

_Maka knows that he's right. She just wishes that he wasn't._

* * *

Maka reaches out to the door, timidly. She doesn't know why, but she feels the need to be the first one to knock- as if Soul might recognize her particular style of knocking and know it's her.

_Unlikely, she guesses._

There's no answer.

"He might be asleep?" she suggests, with a shrug. "It is 4am," she comments, poignantly shooting a look at her boss. "Although, he had told me his sleeping was sporadic." She frowns, knocking again- a little harder, this time.

"Soul?" Azusa calls loudly, her eyes closing in perception. "I can sense a soul. It's… it's very weak."

Maka concentrates.

"I can't tell whether it's Soul or not…" she concludes, feeling for his wavelength but unable to locate anything of note. "Soul?" she calls, a little louder.

Still nothing.

Her brain spins into fight-or-flight panic, banging on the door over and over again and yelling for him.

_He's never taken this long to reply before._

"Kid, you  _need_  to unlock the door." She says, obstinately. "You have to. Something's happened.  _Please_." She begs desperately, feeling her heartbeat speed up. Kid looks at a loss what to do.

"We can't, Maka." He shakes his head. "It's too dangerous."

Azusa places a hand on the door and closes her eyes.

"He's there, and he's alive." She states. "It would seem he's in a state of consciousness, right now." she adds, as if trying to comfort the young meister. One of her perfectly maintained eyebrows flickers up inquisitorially. "I'm unsure as to why he can't respond."

"I can't resonate with him." Maka says, pointedly. "I can't sense Ragnorak's wavelength, either. He's not-" she starts but feels something interrupt her. A familiar something.

_Soul. It's Soul's wavelength._

She cuts her sentence short theatrically and Azusa interrogates her. "What is it? Maka, what can you sense?"

"It's him," she whispers, trying to get a grip on his soul's wavelength as if pulling a single thread in an attempt to unravel an entire blanket. "Please, Soul." She whispers, just a modicum quieter.

Kid and Azusa watch in apprehension as Maka attempts to communicate with Soul through their soul bond. She can't resonate enough to get to the Black Room, but she can just about send messages through their bond.

_Soul…? Soul, are you there? Can you hear me? Can you feel my wavelength?_

_…_

_Maka…_

"Here's there!" she exclaims.

_Soul! What's going on? Are you okay?_

_Maka, listen to me. Ragnorak… he's powerful. More than before. I can't… I can't keep him out for very long. I'm losing it._

_Soul, you have to hold on!_

_No, I can't. Maka, listen to me. He wants… he just wants to hurt everyone. You, most of all. Please..._

_Me? Why does he want to hurt me?_

_I… I… Maka, you…_

Maka's fingers tense on the door as his soul becomes weaker through the bond; his thoughts become more unintelligible. He's struggling against it, she can feel it. She desperately tries to elicit a response from him.

_Soul! Please stay with me!_

…

…

…

**_You need to let me out._ **

His voice suddenly comes crystal clear and strong through the bond.

_Soul! I thought that you were… I thought you had…._

**_Maka, listen to me. Tell Kid he needs to let me out of here. Open the door. Or I'm going to die. Ragnorak is going to kill me._ **

Maka lets out a half-sob and half-gasp.

_No!_

**_Tell him, NOW._ **

Maka pulls away from the door in shock, taking a few steps back.

"Maka, what's happening?" Azusa asks, ripping her from her reverie. "I sensed a change in there. Something's happened, I can feel it."

"He said Ragnorak's going to kill him, unless you let him out." She repeats, her tone clipped and her voice hoarse.

Azusa frowns. "If we open the door, he's still restrained. It's not like he could escape…" she reasons, her cogs turning quickly. "Kid? It's your call, boss." Azusa fiddles with her glasses, for once; faltering in her convictions.

"I…" he starts, hesitant. "I will unlock the door. Azusa, please stand guard."

Maka breathes a sigh of relief.

_Thank God._

_Soul, we're coming. Please, hang in there._

Kid pulls a large bronze key out of his pocket- almost comic in its size and design. He clicks it into the heavy lock. It clicks once, releasing a series of locks and cranks. Kid begins a complex sequence of turns, clicks and shuffles of pieces until they form the right image. Before clicking the last lever into place, he turns to Maka. "The door locks magically. Kim helped us to lock it more securely after Stein escaped the first time. Only Shinigami, and Kim herself, could open it. And since I'm the last living Shinigami…" he nods his head towards to the metal door and flicks the very last piece of the puzzle into place.

Tentatively, he pushes the door open.

It's dark, very dingy- that's the first thing she notices.

_Soul wasn't kidding._

Then she sees him, her best friend and her partner.

...and her heart shatters.

He looks like a corpse; hanging there all strung up on the wall. She can hardly look; he's still wearing the white shirt he'd had on at Halloween- only it's not so white, anymore. A layer of dust and tar belies the white, and the tan skin of his forearms and neck.

He looks too skinny, his face all gaunt and angular and only partially obscured by his limp, dirty hair and overgrown stubble.

"Soul?" she calls, hearing her voice echo. She turns to Kid. "You told me he was being fed? He looks so  _thin_." she gasps.

"Twice a day." He replies, his inflection a little sinister. "Soul, are you there?"

His neck twitches up and he raises his head, just a little. Maka's heart leaps at the sight.

" _Soul_."

His mouth quirks into a small grin.

"Hello, Maka…" he says, his voice quiet and ominous. It doesn't sound like him, it's all glowering and formal.

_Something about him is all wrong._

_Something about this is all wrong._

"S-Soul?" she asks, taking a small step inside the cell and a deep breath in; inhaling an unpleasant lungful of soot and musk.

Azusa frowns. "Maka… something's not right." She warns. "You need to get  _out_."

Soul laughs. "I guess I should say  _thank you._  I was doubtful that you'd be able to convince them, Shinigami are supposed to be more intelligent creatures. Evidently not."

_No, no. That's not Soul. That's not him. It wasn't Ragnorak, either._

_It was the ogre, the little demon. His Black Blood's personification._

She scrambles back in haste, remembering the last time they had met but it's already too late, because the arms which twist behind him and chain him to the wall swiftly burst into black, glowing scythes and shatter the restraints into pieces.

" _Witchhunter_!" she breathes, aghast. "But  _how_  can you do that?"

Soul cackles wildly swinging his attack towards Maka, who barely manages to jump out of the way, unscathed. Azusa transforms into her gun-type into Kid's hand and they begin firing at Soul as Maka screams at Kid to  _stop_.

It doesn't matter, because Soul's all-black scythe arms act as a shield; deflecting their attacks with relative ease.

"Kid, resonate!" Azusa commands from within her weapon form. Soul's deflecting movements are jerky and discordant but his scythe is radiating a huge amount of power. "Higher frequency!" she snarls. Maka cowers away, near powerless in this kind of fight without a weapon in her arms.

"I'm trying," he shouts back. With a weapon who isn't compatible, he can only do so much. He isn't his father, and this fact has never been more obvious to him than right now. " _Dammit_ , if I had Liz and Patty here!" he swears in his frustration, pumping round after round of condensed wavelength into his possessed friend, watching the bullets sink into the black scythe blade and become absorbed without so much as a flinch. "Maka, get out of here, now!" he seems to remember her; yelling out. "Need my  _weapons_ …!" he grits as the battle between them rages on, and Soul switches from defensive tactics to swooping, chaotic attacks.

She takes off, her feet kicking into gear before her brain has anything to say about the whole thing, and burns rubber down the corridor as fast as her long legs will take her. The only thing she repeats to herself is that if he tries to fight Kid armed with Liz and Patty and at his full capacity,  _Soul will die._


	25. Chapter 25

She runs as fast as her long legs carry her, her feet alternate and hammering drumbeats at the same pace as her heart, up those steps two, no,  _three_  at a time and down the winding corridor.

Breathing becomes hard somewhere along the way and her vision becomes foggy- in her desperation to reach Liz and Patty, it takes her some time to process why.

When she eventually does, her heart hits the floor.

_It's Ragnorak._

_He's in the school, shit, shit…_

She stops in her tracks, her black boots squeaking unpleasantly against the tiled floor.

_Does she turn back? Go back to Kid? No, she can't do that. He's busy with Soul, anyway._

_Does she stop and fight? No, she can't do that either. She's useless with no weapon._

She decides to keep up her pace and run, but feels a force blocking her pathway. She tries to push past it with all her strength; keep going. It's like trying to swim through thick treacle, the air is almost solid. Still, never one to give up, she keeps up resistance.

"Nggh!" she grunts, feeling her muscles start to burn with the frantic need to get  _past_. "Let me THROUGH!" she yells at the entity, trying vainly to channel her wavelength and propagate it through the air, without much avail.

_That was really more Black Star's schtick._

The thick foggy treacle air formulates into something more tangible, that familiar old sword from their fight in the street, weeks ago. She growls. "What do you  _want_?"

" **You**." The voice emerges in a rumble and the answer sends a shiver through her bones. The word pre-empts a wild, winging attack as the sword comes flying at her. She barely manages to deflect the attack with the bottom of her foot extended out in a kicking motion; dodges the next two in a similar fashion.

"That all you got?" she spits. Ragnorak just laughs at her.

" **Good question. Hey Sid… a little help?** " he taunts, giving Maka a moment of pause. She frowns and cocks her head to the side.

"Sid…?" she frowns, nonplussed as the half-zombie man steps out of the shadows to grinningly grip the sword Ragnorak in his hands. "Sid!" she repeats, her intonation shifting rapidly to one of abject horror. "What are you doing!?"

Sid uncharacteristically laughs and swings the demon sword high above his head and slams it heavily down, leaving Maka only a single second to scoot out of the way to avoid being split in two, Medusa-style. She breathes heavily.

_Dammit, he's manipulated Sid, too? This wasn't looking so good._

She decides in a hot second that she needs to remove herself from this situation; and fast. Now that Ragnorak's collected together in a sword, he's not so thick in the air- she takes this chance to bob and weave through Sid's clean slices, making some headway down the corridor.  _Only a few yards!_

" **Running away? Not so brave now, huh Maka?** " the voice comes after her, heavy and taunting.

She makes a thick noise of irritation through her teeth-  _his vernacular hadn't gotten any less childish in the time he'd been away_ \- and she ducks and rolls just out of their grasp once more, throwing herself through the classroom door and kicking it closed with her foot behind her.

Those sparring inside- Kim, Jackie, Black Star, Tsubaki- they all turn to Maka's heaving figure in the door.

"It's Ragno-" she barely manages to gasp out before the sword comes hacking through the door and creating a big demon-sword shaped hole in the thing.

Seconds later, Sid's kicked what remains of the thing open and Tsubaki's shuriken mode comes flying out of Black Star's grip and towards the zombie-teacher, who throws up Ragnorak in a deflection. Black Star himself races towards Sid and attempts to inject him with wavelength but doesn't quite get close enough before he has to jump away again away from the swishing blade.

Maka scampers away from the emerging battle scene and yells at Liz and Patty.

"Liz, Patty! Kid needs you guys in the dungeon,  _now_!" she cries at them. "It's Soul. He's  _out_."

Liz swears and the two of them take off, running past the still-sparring Black Star and Sid while Kim desperately tries to get a read on Ragnorak's soul, using her magic techniques. She closes her eyes as Jacqueline watches, but shakes her head after a few seconds.

"His wavelength is all over the place, it's mental. It's almost like… it's almost like Asura's wavelength." She concludes. "I can barely sense Sid's wavelength through it…"

Jackie clutches her partners arm. "Can't you do anything to slow him down?"

Kim tries her best to summon something but she's powerless; the magic infused with Ragnorak's soul, presumably by Medusa, is too strong for someone of her weak status to override. She shakes head her 'no' and her features set in a miserable expression. "Our attack will be useless against Ragnorak." She grits.

"Not  _Sid_ , though." Jackie replies, a gleam in her eye. "If we can get Black Star and Tsubaki to separate meister and weapon… we can work on Sid while Tsubaki uses her enchanted sword mode on Ragnorak!"

Kim nods in agreement and Jackie transforms into her outstretched hand.

"Star! We're with you!" she yells. They jump into the fight from behind Ragnorak's attacking figure, Kim slicing Sid in the back with a line of brightly burning orange flames, causing him to yell out and lurch forward in pain. This in turn, gives Black Star an opportunity to channel his paralyzing wavelength directly into Ragnorak's sword form. The weapon screeches out in pain and Sid stands frozen for a second, before shaking his head and tightening his grip on the sword hilt.

"Did you feel that?!" Kim breathes. "The madness wavelength! It fell, just then! For a second." She says. "We need to keep at this! Maybe we can get Sid back!"

They continue the same trajectory of attacks, Kim leading the fight and Black Star not letting up his wavelength attacks with Tsubaki in tow. In fact, Maka watches with hopeful trepidation as Ragnorak's attack grow weaker; predictable.

_They can beat him…!_

_Wait, no…_

Maka can sense something. A shift, though it's too difficult to tell exactly what exactly has shifted in a split second.

Sid falls to the floor and Black Star freezes in place.

_What's happening?_

The three girls stare on, nonplussed, until Maka figures it out and screams out to them:

"Tsubaki, it's Black Star! Ragnorak's infecting him!" she yells out, as Tsubaki transforms back into her human form and turns her weapon in confusion. Even without Maka's advanced soul perception, she can sense that there's something happening here; a power struggle happening inside her ninja meister as she watches. Black Star's eyes are closed like he's about to do one of his signature moves, except he's  _not_  moving. He emits a low growl as everyone in the room takes a deep breath in unison.

"Star?" Tsubaki calls out to her partner, a little tearfully. Meanwhile, Kim rushes to Sid's side and stares up at Black Star, her expression baffled. "What's going on with Sid?" Tsubaki calls.

"He's unconscious…" Kim replies, baffled.

Black Star starts to laugh and Kim readies herself in her best battle stance, Jackie in her hands and pre-emptively spitting flames from her lantern form. A scowl etches on her face and Tsubaki steps back from her weapon, sensing something very off.

The laugh coming from him turns louder, more aggressive.

The power-struggle inside him ends, because there's a clear winner.

Maka barely has time to react before the blue-haired boy switches over; makes a dash for her- seemingly impervious to the spray of fire which assaults his left-side. The only thing which stops him from breaking every bone in her body upon impact are the chains which appear around his torso and restrain him from reaching her in time.

"LET GO OF ME!" he screams, voice reduced to a shrill yell, fighting against Tsubaki's chains which temporarily protect Maka. She looks on, frozen in her shock.

"Maka, get out of here,  _now_!" Tsubaki screams from inside her weapon form. "You need to run!" she tries desperately to warn her friend, who nods and takes off again, making a dash for the door.

_Where the hell is she supposed to go? She can't do anything without her weapon…_

She turns back just once before leaving, watching uselessly as Ragnorak's sword slices through Tsubaki's chains and frees Black Star.

Her legs speed up just a little.

She figures she should check on Kid- let him know that Sid's down, and Black Star's turned.

_Their chances are looking slimmer and slimmer by the second._

She realizes with a jolt that her phone is still in her pocket and whips it out as she runs, trying to send a text to Kilik and Ox- telling them to get their asses back to the DWMA, pronto. Although, part of her doubts that they're still going to be awake- she reminds herself that they've already been woken up once this evening.

She sends a quick text to Marie, too.  _After all, they're going to need all the manpower they can get._

She round the corner and practically flies down the steps, but before she gets to the dungeon- she runs into him. Kid and his weapons, with Azusa in tow.

"Maka! Maka, are you okay?" he asks, cle arly concerned. "Thank you." he gestures to his weapons.

"Fine," She nods. "Where's Soul?"

"He... he got away." he admits, and Maka's face crumbles.

 _No_.

Kid's expression is overcast, teeming with anger. "I'm going to call for the others. The school's already on lockdown- nobody's leaving and nobody's getting in. I can't have Soul roaming the streets as he is."

"It's too late, Kid. Ragnorak's already inside. Listen. He's… Sid's unconscious," she pants, trying to get all the information out of her as quickly as possible. "Black Star attacked me. The madness has him." She shakes her head. "I don't know why, Ragnorak's targeting…  _me_. Kid, I'm useless without Soul."

Kid nods. "Crap," He replies. " _Maka_. Stay down here. I'm going to neutralize the situation with Black Star." He nods over to Azusa. "Azusa, you should stay with her." the deathscythe nods affirmatively as Kid sprints off in the opposite direction. That had been happening a lot, recently.

_She wishes she could have Soul here, right now. For a few reasons, actually._

"Shouldn't we be helping?" she sighs to her present company, after Kid's disappeared.

Azusa barely casts a glance her way before replying. "I can use my soul perception and work out if we'll be needed. In the meantime, we should lay low, like Kid said. You're especially in danger without your weapon partner."

"What about  _your_  weapon partner?" she asks, perhaps a little intrusively.

"I don't use one." Azusa frowns. "Come on, follow me."

Azusa leads her down the basement steps once again, but they hardly get down ten before she stops in her tracks. "Maka, I can sense a disturbance. It's likely Soul, but it's hard to tell with the madness muddling the wavelengths. Just a few rooms this way… I'm going to check it out." she jerks her thumb towards a fork in the hallway. "You should keep going, find a room to hide out in." she instructs, pointing in one direction where Maka should go, and then rapidly sprinting away in the other direction.

Maka scowls and keeps on trudging, feeling incredibly useless.

_Is this what Soul felt like when he couldn't fight Giriko on his own?_

Now deep in the dungeons again, she stumbles across the room where her and Soul had first met, all those years. The one with the piano in. Something about it calls her in- perhaps the promise of a pleasant memory in the midst of battle? She's not sure, exactly. Maybe it's knowing that she might not see Soul again, after this.

Refusing to let the thought consume her, she fiddles with the knob and pushes the door open; coughing as the musk of the place fills her lungs.

_It sure was dark down here…_

She sits down on the piano stool which decorates the dusty old grand piano in the middle of the room, the first one she'd ever heard Soul play for her-  _the only one she'd ever heard him play._

She sits down on the thing, thoughtfully, wondering how this whole thing was going to play out. Hoping that Kid reaches Black Star in time; hoping that Azusa could hold off Soul. Hoping that somehow, Professor Stein stayed out of this.

She reaches out, as if considering playing a few of the notes but seems to think better of it- she doesn't want to call attention to her location, after all.

All of a sudden, she hears a noise from behind her.

Someone; something lurking in the shadow, steps forward toward the piano.

_How hadn't she sensed them before…?_

_Who is-_

She inhales swiftly and begins to whip her head around but, before she can fully turn it to get a look at her companion, a sharp pointy blade stretches out in front of her and presses painfully against the front of her neck.

She holds her breath, unable to move herself forward or take a glance backward.

 _Shit_.

She flickers her eyes downwards to get a look at the weapon that's attacking her. Her eyelids narrow as she struggles to see in the dinginess of her current whereabouts, but she does eventually manage to get a proper look at the blade digging into her skin.

It's a red and black scythe.


	26. Chapter 26

The sight of it knocks the wind out of her sails; she stops struggling against him. It's like she gives up, something in that scythe breaks her spirit.

She slumps against the blade, but it doesn't slice through her neck.

"Go on," she spits. "Do it."

She's not sure what makes her say it. Perhaps she really has given up- after all, there really isn't any way for her to fight back against him right now. Or maybe there's some part of her which believes that Soul- even this hollowed out, fake version of him- couldn't hurt her.

Either way, he pauses.

 **"Where's that fight gone?"** the ogre says, taunting her.  **"You used to be a ball-buster. I used to like that about you. God knows he did, too."**

Maka scowls in return.

"Why do you want to kill me?"

" **I don't have any motives other than the pursuit of madness."** The ogre grins **. "After all, it's what I'm made of. The madness inside Soul, the madness inside Ragnorak, inside Stein… and now, it seems, Black Star. It's all me, in some form."**

"You just do whatever Ragnorak says, is that it?"

The ogre laughs at her **. "What can I say? I'm an opportunist."** She can practically hear the grin as she feels his laughing breath on the back of her neck. " **Ragnorak wants to make you feel the pain that him and Crona went through with Asura. That idiot should know better. A Grigori soul like yours is almost completely resistant to it. Won't stop him trying, though."** He pauses, as if for thought.

"Why are you telling me this?" she grunts, the blade beginning to draw a thin line of blood from her white skin.

" **I might as well kill you now. Ragnorak is going to do it anyway. This way, Soul's descend into complete madness will be so much _sweeter_."**

Maka maintains her steady breath and doesn't say anything, feeling desperately for some sort of wavelength from Soul. He must be there, somewhere. She just has to find it- tug on the right string; resonate just right…

_She can feel him, weak and reduced to a puppet, but there._

"He's still there."

" **I know, it's unfortunate. He's quite persistent."** The ogre tuts. **"Oh, you don't stop, do you?"**

There's a second of pause as Maka manages to kick Soul backwards a few paces, knocking the wind out of his stomach. He growls in fury and runs back towards but Maka leaps over him and lands in a crouching position behind.

Something about the manoeuvre reminds her of their first fight with Mosquito, using the chain resonance.

It occurs to her for the first time that they're in a room with a piano in the centre.

_She couldn't use his own technique…?_

She doesn't look too long at the piano, not wanting to give away her mode of thinking, but just manages to roll to one side as the scythe hits the wall behind her.

" **You're just prolonging this, idiot."**

She leaps in between the gap between Soul's torso and his scythe arm, running to the other end of the room.

"Isn't that the only reasonable thing to do…?" she drawls as she scissor-kicks him in the chest, knocking him back a few paces again.

" **Nobody's coming to save you. Who do you think it was that Azusa sensed?"**

She gasps as Soul's scythe deflects a punch.

"Stein!"

_Dammit, so she really does only have one shot at this._

" **Ding ding ding."**

She's faster than he is, but she needs to be even faster if she's going to pull this off.

She dodges him a few more times, pissing him off more and more until she manages to get close enough, biding her time to find the right moment. One last time, she sticks her boot out into him- but this time, he's faster. He reaches out and grabs hold of her ankle. She dangles upside down, her skirt riding embarrassingly up her waist.

He thinks he's got her.

He's wrong, because she's close enough. She can reach. She lifts up her fingers and slams them as hard as she can down on the ivory keys as she keeps a weak resonance link up.

" **Agh, what are you doing?** " he grunts as a ringing, jarring sound emanates around the space. Her eyes squint shut as she focuses on using the sound waves to resonate with him at a higher frequency.

_She hopes to Death this works…_

* * *

Black Star was a pretty uncontrollable force of nature at the very best of times. Even when he was a young child, on his very best behaviour, he could not be controlled.

High on madness, he's at his worst that Tsubaki's ever seen…  _on crack._

He jumps from place to place; spot to spot without even moving a muscle. Kim and Jackie can't get any sort of read on what his strategy might be, he doesn't appear to have one at all as far as they're concerned. Tsubaki luckily has slightly more insight, and periodically appears in weapon form to chain him up, before he breaks free using Ragnorak as a tool.

Tsubaki and Kim start to sweat as Kim takes the full force of Black Star's wavelength to her side, knocking her to the floor.

_Dammit, this wasn't even a fight. This was madness. Or was it Sparta?_

Tsubaki tries again to reign him in, tries to talk to sense to him but her voice is drowned out by that of Ragnorak and he shoves her away, blasting the full force of his wavelength at her, too. She partially blocks using her weapon form but not enough not to sustain a decent amount of damage. Tsubaki gasps in shock and clutches at her chest, falling backward in her human form.

And then there were two.

Jackie stares Black Star down in terror as he does his little disappearing and reappearing act once again. She responds in kind, if at least to buy herself a little time, flames appearing out of her lantern form and propelling her all around the room.

It's not so much a battle tactic as just something;  _anything_  to confuse him.

_She doesn't stand a chance._

That is, she doesn't stand a chance on her own.

She panics as he comes at her, so quickly she barely has time to react-  _dammit, she so didn't sign up for this_ \- but before the impact comes, Black Star gets knocked to one side. There's a ringing in her eyes and she stares at the scene unfolding in front of her with frozen shock.

"Kid!" she exhales with relief. "Thank Death,"

Kid fires two huge blows at Black Star; suppressing him.

"Kid, don't you think we should go easy? It is Black Star, after all," Liz says doubtfully, still in weapon form.

"Our bullets aren't having any effect on Ragnorak. Keep shooting Black Star, we need to keep him  _down_. He's very strong, and that means he's dangerous right now." Kid snarls, pumping more rounds into his friend and occasional sparring partner. Meanwhile, Ragnorak seems to decide that Tsubaki is the second greatest threat in the room, because he starts to send jabs at her- she defends using just her arm, outstretched in demon-sword mode. She's good, but she's not used to being autonomous. It's not her style, and it doesn't take long to realise that Ragnorak is getting the better of her.

Meawhile Black Star lies still after the barrage of Kid's bullets; now lying in a cloud of debris and smoke in a smaller crater in the ground.

"Kid, stop!" Liz commands from inside the gun. "Is he ok?"

Kid pauses and lowers his cannon arms to his side, waiting. He doesn't approach but stands still, ready any second to keep up the attack should he needs to.

Kim and Jackie stare at the blue-haired assassin, trying to figure out if he's going to spring back up and go 'AHA! YOU THOUGHT I WAS DOWN?! THINK AGAIN' but no such taunt comes towards them.

"I think…I think he's down," Kim says unsurely, Jackie still primed, in weapon form and ready to spring into action.

It's a stroke of pure luck that Ragnorak happens to overhear, because Tsubaki had been cornered against the back of a wall previous to that comment, but now he pauses and takes a look at the boy he'd been controlling.

"That's Sid and Black Star we've beaten, Ragnorak. You might as well give up. There's no way you're going to win this." Kid breathes, his cannon-arms still leaking smoke from the freshest attack.

" **You think I care? You think that brat meant anything, in the grand scheme of things?" he screams out, voice ringing fury mixed with apathy. "Or have you all forgotten about the good Professor Stein?!** "

There's a ringing silence in the room as everyone absorbs this.

"Stein…? Stein's in the  _school_?" Kim repeats, shocked.

"Dammit," Kid scowls, readying his cannons to shoot Ragnorak's grinning façade, but Liz holds him back.

"No, you can't. Tsubaki's right behind him, she'll get hurt!"

Kid repeats every swear word he knows in his mind and lowers his cannon-arms down in frustration. While Ragnorak's distracted, Tsubaki turns partway into chains and attempts to restrain the demon-sword. He cackles, and in one swift move tangles her chain-arms around herself; effectively binding her from making any more surprise moves. She screams in pain as he twists her arms around her back and knocks her onto her knees.

"Tsubaki!"

"Kid!" she yells back. "Please!" she calls, her eyes filling with tears as she eyes up her meister. "Is he okay?"

Kid doesn't have time to check. If Ragnorak was telling the truth, and Professor Stein really was in the school… well, they were going to have bigger problems.

* * *

She stays like that, dangling from his fist, her eyes squinted shut and frozen in place, for as long as she can.

_She doesn't feel anything different. Can it have worked…?_

_Then again, she hasn't been attacked in the last two seconds._

One eye slowly opens; just a little crack. A peek at the black and red chequered flooring is more than enough to confirm her suspicions. Around her, one dingy black room has been replaced by another, slightly more kitsch one.

She exhales slowly through her nose.

"Soul?" she calls into the void. "Soul!"

" **You**." The voice comes weaker as the ogre realises where they are, storms towards her.

She stands up, refusing to let herself intimidated. She's come this far, after all. "Where is Soul?" she demands to know. "You know as well as I do that you can't survive without him, not after we beat Ragnorak. Tell me where he is, now." She demands.

"He's off cowering away somewhere, like a weakling." The ogre shrugs, his voice full of disgust. "Why do you put up with him? Your personality is so much stronger than his."

"That's not true," she frowns, shaking her head. "Soul  _is_  strong. But… we're different. We make each other stronger."

"Isn't that cute." He rolls his eyes. "Nauseatingly so."

She ignores him, sits down at the large grand piano. This one is in far worse shape than the one in the old cellar room, dusty and a little broken. "You don't know how to play that."

"You're right, I don't." she thinks to herself for a second, fiddling with a few of the keys and remembering Soul telling her that she was like a 'G' key. It hadn't made any sense to her then, and it didn't make any sense to her now. "Which one is G?"

"You think I'm going to help you?" the ogre growls. "The only reason I'm not tearing you to shreds is because you're too closely linked with Soul and I, right now. It'd probably tear  _us_  to shreds, too." He sulks in the corner.

Maka frowns hard at the piano. She vaguely remembers him teaching her piano once, years ago. He'd taught her how to play a C major scale. Dammit, she can't remember which one he'd started from!

Is it… this one?

She presses a finger against a note tentatively, drawing a scowl out of the ogre.

"Soul," she sighs against the piano, feeling useless and plonking her entire fist against the set of keys in frustration. The noise rings loudly in her ears, all around her.

The waves oscillate almost visibly in the atmosphere and she stares at them for a few seconds.

_Maybe she could try to transmit her Grigori soul wave out through sound?_

_She can't play anything remotely harmonious. The power would be so much less than Soul's ability. Still. She might as well try._

She settles on playing the C major scale, unwittingly starting from an F chord but working her way up the big white keys until it sounds about right, trying to time her clumsy fingers with the beat of her waves.

They awkwardly sync up after a little while of her plodding effort, and she makes her noise louder; makes her  _soul_  louder in the process. The power of her Grigori fills the air and the ogre winces at the light which shines from her soul outward from her chest; all around them.

She keeps going, managing to speed up her tempo a little until she senses something returning her wavelength; feeding it back to her. The melody she's playing badly on the piano becomes interspersed with something else; something harmonious to what she's playing.

_Soul resonance!_

She doesn't stop her playing to yell out in victory, but she feels like it. This was Soul! His soul was playing back at her; albeit much more practised, but the sound waves make even her feeble attempt at piano sound like something amazing; something beautiful.

The direction of the response becomes closer to her, so close that her fingers stop their efforts and she turns round, her eyes searching for him.

"Soul?" she voices a desperate plea. "Soul!"

Something resembling him takes a wary step out from the shadows, towards her. He looks unstable, shaky on his feet. She runs towards him as he practically falls into her; colliding together into a sort of unequal and supporting hug.

Her arms tighten around him.

"Soul, you're ok." She whispers into his ear, stroking his hair as he coughs.

"I don't understand. Am I still locked up? Why was I gone for so long?" he pulls apart from her, searching her eyes for answers. "What's going on?"

"You're out. Ragnorak's attacked the academy; turned Sid and Black Star." She provides them rapidly. "Listen, Soul." She pauses. "I need you. But I need you to fight with me. Are you able to do that?"

He turns away, rubbing his forehead with a stray hand. "I can't be in battle, I'll just turn again. Maka, I'm not strong enough to keep him away. All I can do is hide myself." He says, abashed.

She moves so she's in his line of vision again, putting her hands on either side of his face. "Soul, not with me. If we stay resonating, I can stop it. I can keep you from going back. Please, you have to trust me."

He meets her eyes from inside her hands. "I don't know. Maka, you don't know what the madness  _does_  to you… I've hurt you so many times, now. When my black blood acts up, I take advantage of you. If we're resonating, it's just going to be worse. You're at risk of turning mad, too."

She doesn't stop cradling him. "I'm not. I can keep it away, you know I can. Remembering with Asura? I'll be ok. And you'll be ok, too. Soul, I believe in you."

He stares back, unconvinced.

"Soul…" she starts. "Without my partner, I'm going to die out there. I need you."

_Maybe he's just weak or something, because he could be as stubborn as anything, but Maka telling him she needed him; earnestly? He couldn't say no to that. Wasn't physically capable of saying no, probably._

He takes her hand and leads the two of them out of there, one last time.

When the paradigm shifts back to the realm of living once again, she takes a second to size him up. "You look a bit worse for wear." She comments, sniffing him wryly. He's too skinny; dirty; unkempt and unshaven. "At least you're out of the cell, now."

He looks down at himself. "Jesus." He comments, brushing himself off in a half-assed attempt to look a little neater.

_First thing he's going to do after this is take a long bath and eat a load of chicken._

Maka hears his thought process through their resonance link and giggles. "I can cook you up a roast, if you like?" she smiles widely. "A getting out of jail free celebration gift."

He audibly groans as if the thought itself actually turns him on a little.

_Death, maybe it did. Living on bread and water for five days could turn any man poultry-sexual._

Maka blushes at the sound. "Or maybe fried, on waffles? With LOTS of maple syrup from your precious maple trees, of course. Though… I have a feeling that Ragnorak's soul would taste better than anything right now." He sends her a look, like he's interested but not quite sold. "Fine, you can add maple syrup!" She amends.

_He swears his stomach actually rumbles just from the very thought._

He grins. "We gotta survive this, first." He points out, ever the pragmatist.

She closes her eyes. "Death, I'm so glad you're back." She breathes, reaching towards him and hugging him so tightly that he might never breathe again. She doesn't care as long as he doesn't leave. "Even if the circumstances are admittedly terrible." She adds, laughing.

He raises an eyebrow as she releases her death grip. "Did I hurt you this time…?"

"No." she replies, turning away and pulling up her collar conspicuously hiding her neck. He's about to question her further but he doesn't get the chance- there's the sound of a loud crash coming from somewhere outside the room.

They look at each other, and then at the origin direction of the noise. He transforms into demon-steel into her palm at the drop of a hat.

"Can't we stay in here a little longer?" She bemoans, getting used to the feel of him again; weighing him up. "Yeah, yeah. I know. We gotta leave. C'mon, let's go check it out." She rolls her eyes as she heads for the door, a newfound spring in her step and confidence in her tone. "Before we do, though." She adds, thoughtfully. "I need to swing by Professor's Stein's office. There's something I think we might need."

He acquiesces without a word and she steps out of the darkness and into the fray.

The academy's best ass-kicking duo were back together,  _finally_.

And they were damned if they weren't going to do just that.


	27. Chapter 27

Kid's status report is a little disheartening, to say the least. Tsubaki had been weakened and ensnared by her own chains. Black Star and Sid were totally out cold, potentially still under Ragnarok's influence. Ragnarok himself was just barely being held off by Kim and Jackie. Kilik and the others: all outside the academy. They can't get in; Kid long since sealed off the school.

To top it off, Professor Stein was still MIA, presumable somewhere inside the premises

 _Death_   _only_  knew where Soul and Maka were. If Maka was even still alive. If Soul was still a threat.

And now Azusa was dead.

Kid grits his teeth, tries hard to think as he stares down at Azusa's lifeless body. Stein's near-impenetrable sutures bind her to the floor. Kid thinks about freeing her, but something stops him.

"He killed her, and not the others?!" he growls, searchingly. "It's Ragnarok. Sid, Black Star… he could have killed them, too. He's keeping  _them_  alive in case he needs them," he growls. "She's dead because he couldn't control her."

"Kid, you've got to calm down," Liz says, trying to keep her voice level. "We've fought worse enemies than Ragnarok, remember? C'mon, you  _gotta_  keep it cool."

Patty remains silent, staring at the dead teacher.

Kid releases a controlled breath out his nose and nods. "Yes, cool." He clears his throat, embarrassed at having gotten so emotional. "Nothing is harming Ragnarok himself. We need to deal with that, first."

"Why isn't anything harming him?"

"He's not a normal enemy." Kid says pensively. "He's part magic, part madness." He pauses to think. "It's possible we'll need magic to get rid of him, for good. I'm not certain that Kim's magic is strong enough, but the Grand Witch refused to get involved. On her command, the rest of the witches have retreated back to their realm and we can't unseal the academy to get to them." He frowns. "Kim will have to do."

"What about Eruka?" Patty suggests. "Can't we contact her?"

Kid frowns. "I'm… sceptical about it, to say the least. She wasn't exactly always on our side," he vaguely remembers from all those years ago. "She was powerful, though. Perhaps…" he trails off.

"What have we got to lose?" Liz reasons.

Casting one last glance at Azusa's body, he sighs; full of regret.

_Everything._

* * *

_meanwhile_

* * *

"DIE, stupid idiot," Kim bemoans, hurling Jackie at the elusive blood-sword. Once again, he appears to dissipate underneath the incursion, taking literally no damage. Kim's body is soaked with sweat as she throws the weapon over and over again at her enemy. She's long past believing that he might actually suffer, but she has to keep him from reviving Black Star, or Sid, or killing Tsubaki  _somehow_.

Distraction seems like a suitable technique, but she's running out of stamina.

_Where was everyone?!_

She pants, profoundly exhausted from fighting this tireless demon. Her resonance rate with Jackie begins to destabilize; begins to slip from its perfect frequency as the link becomes overused, grating. "Keep going, Jack," she lets out a ragged breath, just barely managing to jump out of the way of Ragnarok's wild swings. The few cuts she had taken she'd managed to heal, but that had drained her of her magic energy.

Not that she had much of it to begin with.

A few yards away, Tsubaki struggles against her own chains which bind her. She tries to resonate with her weapon, but he's gone. Out cold, and even if he was awake- he took a serious hit from Kid.

She closes her eyes and transforms her body into a smoke bomb, escaping the chains that way and steeling herself for battle - a vain attempt to take the pressure off a rapidly waning Kim/Jackie combination.

The three of them- they're no match for Ragnarok, but it doesn't matter. He's stalling them, anyhow.

Tsubaki grits her teeth and keeps up her guard.

Kim realises that Jackie hasn't said anything for a little while and she consults her weapon.

"Are you ok?" she pants as Tsubaki picks up some slack.

"…" Jackie pauses, frowning. "He's in the air." She coughs. "It's so dense. I can sense him everywhere."

"Yeah," Kim replies, her tone flat with a lack of understanding in her voice.

"…if I light up this entire room… I could dry the air? Smoke him out?" she reasons, not certain if her desperation is making her falsely hopeful. "I don't know if it will work… and you and Tsubaki will need to leave, or you'll both die."

Kim nods.

"Fine, we'll try it." She replies, shaking her head. She  _is_  desperate. "Will you be okay?"

Jackie nods in the affirmative. "We have to try, anyway." She avoids directly answering. "I'm certain it won't kill him. But it could… it could slow him down. Give us time. Anything."

"Ah, dammit. What about Sid and Star?" Kim asks. "We'll need to get them out, somehow."

Jackie pauses, and then shouts out to Tsubaki.

"Tsubaki!" she yells. "Grab Black Star! Get out of here! Now!"

Tsubaki frowns, shakes her head as her arm clangs horribly against Ragnarok's; his screaming beginning to fill the space around them. The room shakes and they all clutch their hands against their ears in unison. "I'm not leaving you guys!"

"You need to trust us!" Kim replies for her weapon, lifting her hands off her ears for a split second to bellow. "Please!"

Tsubaki nods a little doubtfully. She's never one to disobey orders; and she's definitely never one to be distrustful of her friends. She sprints to the centre of the room, throws Black Star's limp body over her strong shoulder and hobbles under his weight in the same direction, leading her out onto the back balcony. She struggles to get out and close the door behind her, Black Star rolling from her shoulder and onto the floor with a hard crack. Tsubaki winces and leans down to inspect him.

The cool breeze is a relief but there's no time to dwell on that.

"Black Star…" she whispers to him, tearfully. She reaches down and brushes some dirt from his face- an overly saccharine gesture but she's at a loss of what else to do to help him.

Inside, Kim flounders.

"We need to do it now!" Jackie says in a panicked voice.

"But I can't get Sid out of here. We don't have time," she flies back. "He'll die!"

"He already died once!" Jackie yells out. "Now get out of here!"

Kim doesn't think for another second, leaping over her unconscious professor face-down on the floor and sprints as fast as her legs carry her out towards where Tsubaki watches worriedly from the balcony, just managing to slam the door closed behind her before it happens.

Tsubaki and Kim stand silently; side by side. They see their classroom in front of them explode with exothermic energy, every window lighting up simultaneously as the flame ignites everything in sight. The edges of the window begin to blacken with the intense heat and Kim hears;  _feels_  Jackie giving it everything through their bond.

Tsubaki's eyes meet Kim's from where she's crouched next to her fallen meister on the ground.

A brief burst of hot air assaults them both and makes Kim simultaneously flinch away and narrow her eyes.

Then; as quickly as it had begun, it stops. The hot air cools rapidly in the atmosphere around them and the fire dies down from the windows.

"Did it… did it work?" Tsubaki asks, and Kim stares on nonplussed.

"J-Jackie?" she calls out. "She wouldn't have stopped unless it worked, right?" Kim frowns, turning to Tsubaki, whose brows knit together in concern. "We should check it out." She bites her lip, nervous. She tries to peek through a crack in the door but black smoke billows out and obscures any view on the situation.

Both girls double over, coughing. Tsubaki swings the door open in it's entirely to let out the smoke and Kim advances forward through the gap, uselessly holding her breath. Tsubaki squeezes her hand in comfort- Kim's grateful for that- and the two of them follow each other into their destroyed classroom, stepping through the debris and ash which surrounds them.

Neither of them sense Ragnarok.

"Jackie? Jackie?!" Kim calls through the smoke, waving her hand in front of her face in a vain attempt to clear it. "It worked!" she calls again.

The smoke in the room begins to clear out through the door and the view becomes clearer.

From where Kim's standing, she can only see rows and rows of burnt-black seats. Her foot hits something and she realises that it's Sid; still face down.

_Oh, God._

She reaches down to see if he managed to survive. She initially blanches when she doesn't feel a heartbeat, but when she remembers he's a zombie, she searches for his wavelength instead.

_There it is._

_He's alive, thank Death._

From where Tsubaki stands, she sees two figures in the distance in front of her. A few final waves of her hand and her breath catches; her heart dropping to the floor as the figures become clear.

"No," she breathes.

Jackie's there, alright. In human form, too. Only there's someone behind her, someone that Tsubaki had been hoping they wouldn't run into, not without Kid as backup.

Jackie's terrified eyes meet Tsubaki's as Professor Stein holds her tightly in his grasp. In his hand, he has a scalpel, and that scalpel is currently pressed against the pallid skin of Jacqueline's neck. Tsubaki's hands fly to her face in horror.

She can just make out the inscrutable smile which plays on the professor's lips.

* * *

_meanwhile_

* * *

" **Ribbit**! I can't stand all these witches in the realm." Eruka Frog bemoans the recent influx to her companion, who just squeaks her agreement. It's ironic that she's complaining about the increase in population at this moment, when she's knee-deep in jungle floor and wading through vines and trees. The only company she has is Mizune, along with whatever weird and wonderful creatures exist in this deserted part of the realm.

Eruka closes her eyes once more, trying to get a stronger read on the wavelength which led her all the way out here. It's still so weak, so faltering. But it's there- which is more than it had been ever before.

_It was something to do with what the Grand Witch had said, for sure. There's no way the two were unrelated._

Eruka wasn't quite sure what had possessed her to walk all the way out here to find the source of it, but hell, she always  _had_  been a curious witch, and the thought that someone else might discover it before her fills her with a sort of remembered  _dread_.

She might have been a bad judge of character, but that didn't mean that she didn't have any morals at all. Besides, given her history of betraying the academy, she could probably afford to get back into Kid's good books.

"It stinks out here," she wrinkles up her nose in disgust at the stench of wildlife. "What the hell am I doing?" she questions herself, shaking her head. Mizune squeaks again; in mouse form held precariously in Eruka's hands as she trudges along. She opens her hands a crack and peeks at her mousy companion. "You doing ok, Miz?"

The anthropomorphic mouse nods in a particularly unsettling manner. Ever seen a mouse nod? It's not natural; they don't have the right neck muscles.

She sighs, wishing that she could poof into her frog form- hopping through the boggy underbrush would certainly speed things up, but then- what would Mizune do? And besides, her soul perception was better when she was a witch.

They wade through for a few more minutes, before Eruka spots it a few yards away; a cabin, partly obscured by trees which appear to have grown around it.

"Look, Mizune!" she exclaims. "A house…" she elaborates. If she's being honest, 'house' might be generous. It's a sort of wooden box, probably no more than one room. It doesn't fit in here; not the jungle or the realm. A quick assessment confirms that the thing was built without magic and doesn't appear to have any access restriction or locking spells present.

She wades a few more metres and steps up onto the first wooden step, crouching down to place Mizune on the floor, tutting at the state of her shoes.

"Hello?" she croaks, knocking twice.

There's no answer but she senses it; him.

She pushes the door open- it's pitch black but she doesn't sense any kind of threat looming in the darkness. When her eyes adjust to the light, she sees that there's a figure crouched over in the corner, all white and pink and awkward angles. "Hello?" she asks, crouching down. He looks up at her, those wide eyes boring a hole into her. "Are you-"

Her phone vibrates in her pocket and she pulls it out, stands back up.

_Kid…? What does Kid want?_

"Yo," she answers, rather uncharacteristically. "Uh-huh… you need me?" she pauses.  _Things must be real bad if they're asking her for assistance. Although, she's probably the only strong witch in the realm who'd be willing to go against the Grand Witch for a favour with the academy…_

She clears her throat, interrupts him without hearing the rest of the explanation. "Kid. I can get there, fast. But… there's something else," she says into her phone, eyeing the corner ominously, staring down at the pink-haired scrap of child-meister cowering in the corner of the cabin. "Something you're going to want to know."

_None of this made sense. Why was he here, of all places?_

"Kid, calm down…." She pauses, interrupting his flurry of panic. "It's Crona. He's with me."

* * *

_meanwhile_

* * *

"Let her go!" Kim screams against her better judgment, her eyes fixated in horror at the scalpel which presses deeper into her partners neck, drawing a steady stream of blood as Jackie wriggles and screams. Kim runs at the professor with every intent to har him, but his sutures appear at her feet, binding her to the floor. She topples over ungracefully and swears as her knees smash against the hard wood. "JACKIE!"

"I've got to say, you aren't what I had in mind, but you'll  _do_." The professor's lips curl as he speaks to his victim.

_No!_

"Kim, wield me; throw me at him!" Tsubaki screams in the moment.

"I can't, I'll hit Jackie!" Kim yells back, bound by the sutures and unable to move.

"KIM!" Jackie manages to scream, the pain in her neck sharpening and blood beginning to leak onto her collar.

_No, please!_

"I'm going to enjoy dissecting you…" he chuckles to himself, his weapon of choice gleaming in the light of day.

Then: a noise. Someone enters the room. Two people, actually. It's not Kid, like they'd all been desperately hoping for, but it was possibly the next best thing.

"I think you mean  _vivisect_." Maka corrects, stance wide and her eyes narrow.

Soul stares at the post-apocalyptic sight before him.

_Jesus, what happened here?_

The professor stares at the intruders, dumbstruck- dropping Jackie from his grasp. She falls dramatically to the floor, Soul running across the room and barely reaching her in time to soften the blow and scoop her up onto her feet. "Are you okay?" he asks, dubiously.

"Yes," she gasps, Tsubaki rushing to the scene as Kim struggles against her sutures. With Stein well and truly distracted, they weaken in strength and she breaks free, running to her fallen partner.

A few metres away, the professor grins. "Now, this is more like it." He chuckles. The doctor barely manages to take two steps towards Maka before Soul appears between them.

"Back off, freak," he says lowly. Both his arms now end in metallic points: he's ready to fight if needs be. Stein's arms outstretch as if to throw a punch, but Soul catches it with the blunt side of his blade, throwing out two decoy attacks which miss as Stein seamlessly dodges, culminating in a hard kick in the stomach which doesn't miss; he sends Stein reeling backwards. The gleaming grin on the professor's face turns rapidly into a sick grimace and the electric crackle of potential energy buzzes around his right hand.

_Oh, now he's pissed off._

"Maka!" Soul calls, transforming fully into his Meister's arms now. She stands in her battle stance, weighing up Soul and getting used to the feel of his metal bar in her grip once again.

"Where's Ragnarok?" she whips her head around, assessing the enemy and twirling Soul around a few times for good measure. She sees Sid and Black Star; just noticing for the first time the sorry state of the blackened, destroyed classroom she stands in.

"We smoked him out… I don't know where he is," Kim replies, still close to her partner, a drop of fear in her tone. Stein curses and looks ambivalently on as his own hand reaches out to deliver a crushing targeted wavelength.

"My brightest pupil," Stein gazes admirably at Maka, now. "I'm going to enjoy cutting open your brain. I bet your myelin is  _gorgeous_. And Soul, your black blood is fascinating… what fun I'm going to have with the two of you." He giggles like a schoolgirl.

"Why are you  _doing_  this?" she asks her enemy, her voice coming out petulant and quiet. "Professor Stein, you need to resist it!"

"Maka,  _move_!" Soul shouts out and she does, a little mechanically but effectively. "We need to resonate." he says with haste. "Witchhunter,"

"We can't hurt him." She frowns, feeling their resonance rate ramping up slowly but surely. It begins to snowball; gathering speed and frequency as Soul concentrates harder on their link. "He's under Ragnarok's influence," she reminds her weapon.

Soul ignores her as he smashes into his witchhunter form and they slice clean through a few of Stein's wavelength attacks; cutting them into tiny shreds with relative ease.

"We're defending. We need to attack soon." He instructs his partner with urgency.

Maka remains stoic and obstructive, keenly aware of the fact that while her witchhunter is effective  _now_ , she's being backed further and further towards the corner of the room. Soul's voice becomes louder. "Genie hunter, Maka," he says, but she remains tight-lipped.

"No."

"Maka, you know as well as I do that he's going easy-"

_Shit._

As if to prove his point, Stein switches up his attack, gaining on them and grabbing onto Soul's handle, twisting the weapon round angrily. He then uses his other hand to project his wavelength into Maka, who yells out in pain and stumbles backwards.

"Maka!" Soul's voice comes loud and fierce. "Get up!"

"Genie hunter," she agrees, her voice shaky.

Something deep within Soul stirs and he winces.

**_You're too close to the edge already. Genie hunter will push it over._ **

_I know. What choice do I have?_

**_I'm not complaining. Do what you gotta do._ **

Maka senses his internal conflict and pauses. "Should I keep going?" she asks, to which Soul nods firmly. "Okay." She breathes and they feel their resonance increasing as Tsubaki stares, fascinating.

Inside the Black Room of his soul, they stand opposite each other; feeling the vibrato of the sound of their souls resonate through the both of them and harnessing the power. "We're almost…" she says in almost a whisper, watching his eyes close and his fists clench into balls.

"Maka." He grunts. "I can't keep it back." He explains angrily. "But… we can use it," he attempts to clarify but Maka understands.

"I'll keep fighting, I swear. And then… I'll pull you back, again." She promises.

He lets go, fully, letting the madness take over his body for the last time as his form outwardly takes on the jagged, three-pronged form of genie-hunter. Kim whistles in low appreciation of the impressive form.

Stein doesn't flinch but Maka holds the scythe threateningly. "Don't get any closer, Professor," she warns.

Everything is still for a couple moments.

Inside their collective mind; Soul's face contorts into an expression she's not seen before and she takes a step back in anticipation.

"Soul?" she asks, to which this façade of him grabs her hand and leads her into a dance on the chequered linoleum.

" **Guess again** ," the voice comes back, enigmatic and haunting. Their resonance rate goes crazy. His scythe radiates power through the whole room. Maka keeps up the subtle dance but keeps a view on what's happening outside.

Her reaction time is too quick for Professor Stein, and the benefit of Soul's black blood in battle is that they can effectively counter his chaotic attacks with harnessed chaos of their own **.**

When it looks like they might actually be gaining an advantage, something they hadn't accounted for happens.

In Stein's hands, a black sword now materializes as the Professor's gleaming grin flashes with grim determination.

Maka's hands grip onto her weapon a little tighter as the real battle begins; scythe against sword clashing against each other over and over. Their genie-hunter shatters as Maka feels Ragnarok infecting Soul further with the disease of insanity and their resonance begins to fall out of sync.

_Crap, they're losing._

"Soul!" she exclaims as the weapon is knocked out of her hands entirely by Ragnarok. She fully expects Stein to go straight for her, but instead, something more curious happens.

When Ragnarok knocks Soul out of her hands, Soul and Ragnarok's souls seems to collide in such a way that Soul exhibits a modicum of control over his fellow black-blooded enemy. The demon-sword comes clattering out of Stein's hand in unison.

Maka and Stein only watch as the two weapons battle for control- both of them, half-transformed and slashing at each other with bladed arms. Even a mad Stein can't help but stare on in fascination, pushing his glasses up his nose. "Interesting." He comments drily. "They can't do any damage to each other, because they both have such high black blood levels."

She shrinks away from him as he steps forward with a shrug, as if his previous deduction couldn't possibly matter- with Kim and Jackie stepping in just in time with a swinging lamp attack which probably saves her from dying right there and then.

"Thanks!" she manages to scrap out before Stein advances on her again-  _dammit, why does he want her so badly?_

Soul's blade comes shooting out to rescue her, again, but he doesn't hold back. He throws his arm forward with all his strength as a deep gash wound appears on Stein's chest. Blood spatters outwards and the professor stumbles; coughing.

He doesn't fall.

The wound isn't deep enough. It buys them a few seconds, though, before Stein appears to lose any semblance of cool whatsoever. He stops to crank the bolt in his head a few turns before reaching a satisfying 'click' and turning to Soul.

Maka tries in vain to project her Grigori soul onto Ragnarok, but despite the power of her wavelength, he's too erratic. She can't get a proper read on it, and he's flying around the room in pieces right now.

Soul's a pretty good autonomous fighter, but Stein far outranks him in hand-to-hand combat. Soul runs at his opponent with arm outstretched; but Stein grabs his arm- the scythe not even cutting his fingers- and swings Soul's entire body at the wall with force.

He's not done, though. After Soul slumps to the ground, Stein hits him with the full force of his wavelength attack, a shuddering, slam of his fists- the intensity of which leaves Soul totally immobilized on the floor. There's a sickening crunch. Stein's arms reach out and Maka senses he's preparing for a killing blow. Kim swings Jackie forcefully at his head, but he bats her away with little effort to focus on his target.

"SOUL!" Maka screams out; her own unpractised scythes coming out from her arms and flailing towards Stein. He deflects her without a second thought.

"Maka," Soul coughs, "The syringe," he manages to grit out, his voice cracking with the pain.

"I can't get close enough," she cries.

_Soul's going to die._

_No, no, no, no…_

The familiar sound of Kid's gun blasts knocks her out of her reverie and temporarily diverts Stein's attention. He pumps round after round of bullets into the professor, who seems to absorb them with very little damage.

"Kid!" Maka yells out. "I need you to keep him still!"

Kid stops firing, lowers his hands.

_What the hell? She just told him to keep the professor still!_

"Kid, what are you-"

"Now, Eruka." He commands, his voice a booming paragon of authority.

From behind him, Eruka Frog steps out of the shadows, a sickly looking boy tailing behind her.

The room seems to tilt with the shock as they catch on to the pink hair and the black robe.

_Was that… Crona?!_

"What is happening?" she asks. Kid's eyes are fixed to Professor Stein, who seems to be in a world of his own, gazing into the middle distance.

Eruka's arms reach up and she casts the spell.

In Stein's mind's eye, the room lights up all yellow and bright. A woman appears in front of him-  _when did she get there?_ The only thing he's been able to focus on for weeks is that shadowy sword, but now he can make out her features clearly. Her shiny blonde mane, her kind, forgiving features somehow only elevated by the existence of that black eye patch. Her arms are open.

"Franken," Her voice is pure honey. "Look what you're doing. This isn't you." She says, but there's no scorn in her voice. Just acceptance; forgiveness.

" ** _Yes it is. You killed Azusa. You really think Marie can save you? Look at yourself. There's nothing left to save."_** The angry taunting black voice meets hers in a clash of interests. He shakes his head, 'no' at his wife and backs away a few paces.

"It'll be okay, Franken. You just need to stop hurting them."

"You're not Marie!" he shakes his head in a wild motion. "You can't stop me! You heard him. I killed Azusa. I have nothing left to lose."

" ** _That's right."_** Ragnarok draws out of him, testing how far he can go. " ** _You're a monster."_**

"No. That's not true." Marie says now, as his baby Clarence appears in her arms and smiles up at him. "You're a father."

_Oh God. Death. Clarence. Marie._

_What am I doing?_

The professor collapses to his knees as the whole room watches with shock.

And then, when he's most vulnerable- Maka makes her move. She steps up to him, pulls the syringe out of her pocket and plunges it deep into his arm.

"Is that-" Kid asks.

"It's the one from his office, the one which sends him to sleep." She answers, making sure every last drop fills his veins. "It's not full, though. Eruka… keep doing whatever you're doing,"

Eruka's hands falter.

"It's wearing off." She shakes her head in hopeless apology. "I only have limited magic..."

_No… she has to do something…_

Stein falters. Marie and Clarence disappear as Eruka's spell wears off and Ragnarok's croak begins to drown out the voice in his head with vitriol and madness once again.

While he's still down, Maka takes a deep breath in and kneels beside her teacher, placing her hands on his shoulder. She closes her eyes and focuses her Grigori soul onto him; harnessing her whole soul's worth of healing energy directly into his soul.

Kid holds his breath.

 _Everyone_  holds their breath.

"Marie…" he whispers, barely audible to anyone except Maka. And then Professor Stein falls to the floor with a thud.


	28. Chapter 28

Maka closes her eyes in silent relief and sinks onto her knees. There's a resounding quietness in the room, owing mostly to profound exhaustion and shock. Kid walks over to Maka and helps her up to her feet.

She looks up at him with thanks.

 **" _You think I care?"_** Ragnorak growls. " ** _Stein's one person._** _**You've all forgotten about the zombie and the brat**." _The voice comes ringing _. **"And Soul, too."**_

"Ragnarok," Crona spells out feebly, stepping out from where he was cowering behind Eruka. "You should stop this." He says nervously.

Ragnorak's laugh comes rumbling back with a hint of surprise.

 ** _"Crona."_** He speaks directly to the meister, through their soul bond. Everyone watches as they realise there's a conversation unfolding inside Crona's soul. Only Kid and Maka can decipher what's being said.  ** _"Someone found you."_**

"E-eruka. The frog lady." Crona stutters.

**_"You're not ready, not yet."_ **

"We shouldn't do this, Ragnarok,"

 ** _"Yes, we should._** " He scoffs.  **" _Don't lie, you want to see that stupid girl suffer as much as I do. The way that we suffered."_**

"It wasn't her fault!"

**_"Yes it was. It was all their faults. But she… she lied to you. Remember? She told you that you could be friends. And then she forgot about you."_ **

"No!" Crona shakes his head, disbelieving. "It… it can't be… Maka wouldn't do that," he adds, but doubt is already beginning to take root in his voice.

Maka's eyes shine with tears as she hears their meaning.  _No_ , she tries to say; but she chokes on her words.  _We thought you were dead. We looked for you. I didn't give up._

**_"Only once they've all felt what it's like to have Asura's madness, then they'll understand."_ **

"This is Asura talking, not you." Crona replies. Outward, he bites his lip. "Ragnarok, please," he begs, looking a little desperate. "I can't hurt her. I don't want to." There's a pause. "She's my friend."

" ** _I'm your only friend. I'm the only one who stuck around through everything."_** He pauses.  ** _"I've done this all for you, you ungrateful brat."_**

Crona shakes his head and takes a step back, but Ragnarok loses his temper, growls at his old partner.  ** _"Fine. Then you don't leave me a choice,"_** the sword hits back, conglomerating together; fusing with Crona's blood- coexisting once more. The black blood fill his veins and his brain once more and the sword sheens in Crona's hands.

The world tilts, and the only other person who heard their dialogue steps forward. Kid lifts his hual weapons as if to take a shot but Maka shouts out.

"NO!" she screams. "Don't!"

Kid pauses diplomatically as Crona breathes heavily, fists wrapping experimentally around him weapon and holding it in front of him. "He won't stop." He says quietly, looking meaningfully at Maka. "He's infected with Asura's madness."

Maka sobs. "B-but." She begs. "That's  _Crona_ , too. Our friend."

An unruly frown forms between Kid's perfectly symmetrical brows. "I don't have a choice, Maka. This is for the safety of the academy." He lifts his cannons in the air, but Maka jumps in front.

"No," she spits. "I won't  _let_  you. Step away, Kid." She glances behind her. "Soul, please." she says quietly, summoning her partner.

_Typical Maka…_

Soul's a weapon, after all. Above all else, he values loyalty and submission. So if Maka wants to take a risk takes a shaky, weak step towards his meister and sends an apologetic look to Kid before transforming in her hands.

Kid raises his hands in defeat and takes a step backwards. Tsubaki joins him, as do his weapons. Kim remains at Jackie's side, tending to her wounds. "Fine." Kid accepts. "But… I'm here if you need me."

Crona's arms appear to detach from the sides of her body as they swing maniacally backwards in a move to gather momentum before smashing down upon Maka; bashing against Soul angrily. The two weapons struggle against one another for a couple moments before Maka gains the upper hand, pushes Crona back a few paces before drawing Soul down the blade with a loud metallic scraping noise. "Crona," she grits. "Please, you don't have to do this." She reasons.

Ragnarok laughs bitterly through Crona's lips.

"You're not Crona's friend.  _I'm_  Crona's only friend," he replies angrily, makes a stabbing motion towards Maka, which she dodges with her whole body, lifting her foot up and smacking the still blade away with her boots.

"How can you say that?" Maka rebuttals, spinning Soul above her head to gain speed. "You control and manipulate him!" she reaches a speed that she likes, taking a swipe at the enemy. She manages to make a small incision into Crona's arm, which leaks a few drops of black blood but then hardens, sealing off the damage.

The needles becomes spikes-  _Maka had forgotten about bloody needle, dammit_ \- but luckily Soul remembers in time and moves to block the sharp points from piercing his meister. "Be careful," he growls at her, feeling his own black blood begin to ramp up in response.

Maka pauses for a second. "I'm going to try and resonate with Crona." She states, boldly, crashing Soul's scythe-body against Crona's with force, numbing his arm as he yells out in surprise. "Let's go. Soul Resonance." she says, oozing confidence.

"You… you LIED to us!" the symbiote calls out, his blade drawing against Soul's and swinging out to her side before appearing back in front in defence.

There's a few moments of pause; a pregnant silence. Crona doesn't understand; neither of the attackers do.

"Why is she staying still? Why isn't she moving? I can't deal with this!" he exclaims, eyes flitting back and forth. "Who cares?!" Ragnarok growls. "Get  _on_  with it!" he shoves their frame forward and lifts up, about to slice clean through their opponent, but before the attack hits- they're transported somewhere else.

A soft gentle jazz tune permeates his ears and he looks down at himself, sporting that old tunic he used to wear; with the white cuffs. Next to him appears Ragnarok in his human form; all six foot five of his bulky frame and those bulbous, puffy eyes.

"Where are we?" Crona wails, looking at her weapon. "I… I'm not sure how to  _deal_  with this!"

"…I'm…" Ragnarok starts, baffled. "I have legs."

Maka appears in front of them and nods.

"You're in Soul's Black Room." She states plainly. "You're resonating with Ragnarok, I'm resonating with you. And Soul and I are resonating. It's like a chain link," she explains. "I couldn't think of any other way to talk to you, Crona, without Ragnarok infecting you."

Outside their souls, Soul and Maka's resonance link is ramped up higher and higher as Kid watches, his mouth forming a grimace as he grips his weapons tighter.

"W-what?" Crona mouths. "Me?"

Ragnarok scowls. "This is stupid."

"Crona, listen to me." Maka says quickly, no time to lose. Outwardly; their bodies battle each other even more ferociously than before. If they keep up this way,  _someone_  will die. "Ragnarok is hurting people. You need to make him stop."

Crona frowns deeply.

"I can't," he says. "He's in control of me. Asura's madness… it changed both of us." She balls her fists. "I'm too weak."

"You aren't," Maka shakes her head.

"I am." Crona closes his eyes. "Don't you think I would have done something already? I can't stop him."

"It's true." Ragnarok says with a vindictive gleam. "I'm protecting Crona. I'm the only reason he isn't dead. I kept him alive with my black blood when he was suffering the most; after Asura died and we came back."

"Until today, I was hidden in the witch's realm." Crona frowns. "Eruka found me; somehow. I would have been too weak to make my own way here." He explains, sadness etched out onto his features.

Maka stomps her foot in frustration.

"Can't you do anything?!"

"My blood is black." Crona replies simply, expression withdrawn. "My blood is Ragnarok. We can't  _survive_  without each other."

"Dammit," Maka swears, thinking quickly. "Soul, keep up the resonance rate. You gotta keep going, I need more time… to think of something."

Crona realises with a jolt that the jazz music is emanating from Soul, who sits over at the grand piano and frantically creates sound with his fingers on the keys; presumably driving whatever insane resonance rate they were reaching. He nods deftly, frowning.

"Ragnarok," Maka addresses the sword directly. "You can't hurt me in here." She says. "Out there, we're still fighting."

"I know, idiot."

"Why are you doing all this?"

Ragnarok growls.

"I told you, bitch. Everyone abandoned me and Crona. Everybody. Including you.  ** _You_** , who was supposed to be his friend; on his side." He shakes with rage. "With Crona  _weak_  and vulnerable, I had to find a way to get her help. I found a way to make myself independent, because I knew that we couldn't rely on  _you_." He spits.

"So… now you want revenge?" Maka asks, her voice remaining level with a sense of urgency. "Is that it? That won't help him, you know."

"Not everything is so  **fucking**  reasonable!" Ragnarok screams. "I was there too! On the moon! I had to put up with Asura's bullshit for that long! TWO YEARS!" he bellows.

"The academy can help you with that. Look at Stein, look at Soul. We have magic and other ways to help you. To get rid of the insanity. You just have to stop fighting and  _trust us_."

"Trust you!" Ragnarok points an angry finger as Crona shies away from the increasingly loud conversation. "YOU, who forgot about Crona the second he disappeared?! You care more about yourself than you do about your so-called friends,"

"Maka…" Soul says warningly, his notes beginning to falter.

"Keep going!" she yells back, before turning to Ragnarok. "We never gave up. We kept looking… but after a while, we didn't have the funds or the time to keep searching.  _Everything_  told us that he was dead. Both of you…" Maka tried to explain, feeling the ever-increasing intensity of time-pressure.

" **YOU SHOULD HAVE TRIED HARDER!** " his rage begins to reverberate around the room, but someone cuts in.

"It wasn't just that." Crona says weakly, interrupting them. Both parties turn to stare at their interlocutor.

"What?"

"It wasn't… just that. Ragnarok needed more black blood… to heal us." Crona stares down at the floor in shame.

"More… more black blood…?" Maka says, nonplussed for a second before she realizes with a jolt what Crona means. "Soul? You wanted Soul?"

_That's why he'd been so affected by all this…_

"That's right. I tried to turn him mad, so he'd come to us." Ragnarok reveals with a snarl. "But  **you** \- you just kept pulling him back, every time we tried." He pauses. "Yet another example of what an interfering, selfish  **bitch**  you are."

"Maka-!" Soul says again, his voice breathless and demanding.

Maka's attention turns once again to her weapon. "I just need-" she stops short of finishing her sentence, the words pulled out her with shock as she sees _it._

The ogre is back; huge and red and demanding. It's smile is plastered across it's gargantuan face as Maka notices the walls beginning to break down; oozing black liquid as Soul continues to play his jagged tune.

"No… you don't understand." Soul coughs out. "If we keep going like this… it's going to infect you."

" **Soul's right, you're very close to the edge."** The ogre chimes in, smugly.  **"Time to make a choice. Are you willing to take a gamble on your own sanity?"**

_No… she just needs a little longer…_


	29. Chapter 29

Maka's eyes level with Crona's as she takes him in. His ragged clothes; his shoulder-length limp pale pink hair, that inscrutable nervous expression. He bites his lip; eyes still full of shame as they drop to the floor.

_Crona's my friend._

She thinks about what Ragnarok was saying earlier, about being Crona's only friend. Remembers how Crona had gone to the moon to fight Asura for everyone's sake; knowing what it would cost.

_It's true. Crona had been forgotten by everyone in his life, right when he needed them the most._

_Crona needed her, now._

She grits her teeth.

"Keep going, Soul." She says grimly.

He closes his eyes and readies himself; loses himself completely to the madness as the playing intensifies and becomes clashing and angry against the keys. The ogre punctuates the playing with a deep belly laugh as he feels more and more of Soul's soul getting consumed by the force. Ragnarok lets out a low chuckle, too.

"It's  **useless** , you know." He grins. "You're just buying yourself time. Eventually, it'll get you. All of you, worthless DWMA phonies."

Maka collects herself. "Ragnarok, please. You did what you did for Crona; for his safety. Now think about what would be best for Crona,  _please_."

"That idiot doesn't know what he wants!" Ragnarok shrieks.

"Please, if you keep doing this, we'll have no choice but to lock him away. Nobody wants that." Maka bites her lip. "We  _will_  win. And if you don't stop now… Crona will go down."

"It's too late." Crona's eyes fill with tears. "Maka, it's too late. Azusa is dead because of us; because of what Stein did."

Maka's breath hitches with shock. "Azusa…." She repeats. "It doesn't matter." She says firmly. "The academy can look past it. If it stops there.  _Please_ , Crona." She feels herself losing this battle now; the battle against Ragnarok but also the battle against Soul's black blood. She's going down, down, further down…

 ** _"You're losing it."_** The ogre says simply.  ** _"Let go. Join me and Soul."_**

She braces herself and doesn't stop their resonance link. "You have to listen to me! I can help you!"

The piano stops.

Soul topples to the floor as the madness consumes every part of him and the ogre takes his soul for the reigns.

 ** _"Time to dance."_**  He steps over to Maka's flinching frame and looms over her.  ** _"It's over."_**

Crona bites his lip, and stares at Maka. Looks round, stares at Soul's unmoving body; the piano; the ogre. Takes it all in; the black room, his friends, the fight that's raging outside.

"Maka." He says, suddenly tranquil. "You're holding back."

"What? What're you talking about?" Ragnarok growls, eager to see Maka's- and subsequently Soul's- soul consumed.

"You could have killed me." He states, plainly. "You didn't. I even  _told_  you. The only way to get rid of him was to hurt me… and you refused."

"WHY ARE YOU TELLING HER THAT,  **IDIOT**?!" Ragnarok rages uselessly against his meister's words. "JUST DIE ALREADY!"

Maka holds onto herself with every drop of sanity she has left. "Crona…"

"You sacrificed  _yourself_. Your own mind. Soul, he did too. For  _me_. To keep me from dying." He observes her carefully. "It's time for me to do the same."

"No," she says weakly.

"Yes, Maka. It's the only way." Crona pauses, nodding with sorrow. Crona looks at his blown up weapon for a few seconds. "He won't stop. I've been inside Asura's mind, I know the lengths he'll go to."

"B-but… I can't…"

"You have to."

Maka screams and it takes every single atom of courage and strength in her body to force an end to the chain resonance that they're experiencing and shut out Ragnarok and Crona for good- with perhaps seconds to go before her soul would have been completely consumed. With her, she drags Soul back from the depths of insanity through their soul bond.

As she feels the room fade away, the ogre inside Soul bellows after her in rage; rage that she got away and rage that he's lost, again.

She lands on the heavy classroom floor, sweat dripping from every pore and with every muscle in her body screaming out in agony.

"GENIE-HUNTER!" she cries out wearily as her weapon yields to her command. He takes on a new form; similar to his usual resonance form but black instead of white in colour.

Maka doesn't hesitate- she's not taking any chances right now. She barely touches his blade edge against her opponent but it's the death blow that she's been avoiding and almost immediately after contact is made, the energy in the room shrinks by fifty times.

Crona freezes; stumbles and falls.

Nobody says a thing.

Crona lies still on the ground. Wavelengths which were previously exacerbated and flying round the room are now as still as a flatlining heart monitor.

Maka catches her breath as Soul transforms into human form.

She approaches the dying meister on the floor with a little caution, a little sorrow.

"Crona," she says. "I'm so sorry."

Crona opens a single eye which crinkles at the corners. "It worked." He makes out, barely alive. "He's gone." Both the meisters look down at a cut on Crona's hand which now oozes crimson blood.

Maka's tears spill out down her cheeks and she finds Crona's hand to hold. "I… I…." she starts, failing to come to a satisfying conclusion to that sentence.

"It's ok." Crona makes out a weak, wavering smile. "Maka… you were the sole source of joy in my life, before Asura." He makes out, as Maka sobs. " _Thank_  you."

And then, he says nothing.

Stops moving.

Maka's heartbeat hammers in her ears as Crona's diverges; becomes weak and fades away.

She feels Crona's wavelength disappear at the same time that she feels Soul's hand rest on her shoulder as he crouches next to her.

_And then, he's gone._


	30. Chapter 30

"He's dead," she cries, turning around and releasing her emotion in the form of heavy sobs into Soul's chest as he envelops her with his arms.

"You had to." he says quietly. He strokes her soft sand-coloured hair with a gentle hand.

There's a lengthy silence around them.

Kid clears his throat. "It's gone…  _they've_  gone." he can't sense their wavelengths. "We're safe."

Liz and Patty transform into humans again and stand frozen at Kid's side. Kim and Jackie share a look of relief. Black Star stirs and wakes up from his reverie, with Tsubaki by his side. "Are you okay?" she asks cautiously.

He stares blankly at the aftermath in front of him.

"What the hell…? What happened here?" he scratches his head. "I don't remember anythin'." He pauses. "Is that… is that  _Crona_? Is he-"

"We should get out of here," Tsubaki whispers gently to him. "I'll explain everything then. Come on, I'll take you home." She allows Black Star to rest on her elbow as he hauls himself up, looking disturbed and brushing himself off. Kim and Jackie follows suite as they trudge towards the classroom door with trepidation. "Kid." Kim nods as she passes.

"You're all free to go," he says of the four of them, nodding. "Please call me if anything unexpected happens." He states the obvious. "And… you're all excused from class for the next week to recover." He allows, with a sympathetic glance at Jackie. "I'll be sending a nurse round to check on you," he references their various injuries and Black Star's blackout. Kid turns his attention to the matter at hand.

"What should we do now?" Liz asks Kid, who stares at the room, his students and friends still in shock.

"Right now, we need to get Sid immediate medical attention. I'll call Nygus." He says slowly. "Girls, please fetch a stretcher from the infirmary."

"I'll help," Professor Stein's voice comes cold and clinical from where he now sits up. All eyes shift to him. "I'm ok."

Kid ponders for a second, the image of Azusa's body flashes through his mind.

_No, Stein doesn't know._

He winces with the thought; shakes his head. "Liz, Patty. Call Nygus and the rest of the medical team; tell them it's an emergency. I need to talk with the Professor… and I'm going to call Marie." He says determinedly. "Soul and Maka. You two should go home; rest. I'll deal with Crona."

Soul looks tersely up at Kid and gently pulls away from his meister. "Hey." He says. "We gotta go. C'mon."

"I can't leave…" she pleads.

"There's nothing we can do." He tries, exhausted. "Kid needs space to deal with this. And… you need to rest." He tells her softly, holding her shoulders and meeting her eyes.

She hesitates. Nods. Speechlessly stands up and idly lets Soul lead her away, her head still spinning and her body fatigued.

"Kid, I'll take her home. Let me know if I can do anything." Soul says lowly to Kid as they pass him on the way out. Soul has his hands on Maka's shoulders, guiding her dazed form out of there.

"I will." The Shinigami nods in gratitude. "If not, you'll hear from me soon." He assures.

Kid watches as his friends, tired and injured from battle, skulk off back to their respective homes to recover. With regretful eyes, he turns to face Professor Stein.

He can't help but feel that tonight is going to be a sleepless one for everyone involved.

* * *

_It was over._

Soul twists the shower knob, as winces as the jets of freezing water hit his back and aggravate his bruises. He twists further and sinks into the feeling as the water turns hot and astringently soothing.

He sighs with the feeling.

_Friggin' orgasmic._

The feeling of a hot shower after being shackled and restrained for five days, fighting to the death and thrown into a wall by Professor Stein was almost unbeatable.

Only slightly tempered by the death of Crona, but Soul's running on autopilot. His only mission is to get himself cleaned up and be there for Maka. He doesn't have the mental energy to focus on anything else.

_Maka doesn't have that luxury._

He idly squirts some shampoo onto his hand and rubs it vigorously into his hair; loosening layers of grease and dirt- and a little blood- which had become ingrained into his scalp. It takes about three helpings before he actually  _feels_  like his hair might be clean again.

He looks down at himself as the soapy water runs down from his hair and frowns lightly.

_He looks skinny. Not eating properly for five days would do that._

As if to prove his minds point, his stomach rumbles loudly and reminds him that he needs to satisfy his other bodily need, pronto.

He turns the shower stream off and steps out, drying himself quickly on the warm towel which he pulls from the hook and throwing on some clean clothes he'd found on his bed; a pair of sweats and t-shirt.

He's still tousling his sopping head when he wanders out into the kitchen and spies Maka hunched over a book.

She peeks over the top and points to the countertop.

"I made you some food," she explains meekly. Soul follows her fingertips to a big, greasy bacon sandwich which sits on the countertop, adjacent to some cookies on a plate and a tall glass of milk.

_Oh, that looks good._

He tosses the towel to one side and strides over to her, plucking the book out of her hands. He closes it with a snap as she stares at him reproachfully.

"What are you doing?" she scowls vehemently at him, reaching for her book. He places a hand against her shoulder to stop her in her tracks.

"You need to  _rest_ , not read." He explains. " _Or_  make me food, grateful as I am."

"I want to take my mind off things." She scowls. "You don't understand." She tries to grab her book from Soul- but he lifts it up higher, exposing his torso in the process. She stares at it for a second. " _You_  need to eat." She says, standing up from the couch and walking over to the countertop.

"Maka," he starts. "Crona-"

"I don't want to talk about it." She snaps. "Not right now. I just need… I need to think about something else." She tries to explain, her tone flat. "I'm so. Tired."

Soul nods, picking up his sandwich with both hands and taking a large bite of the thing to appease his growling stomach.

_That's good._

He tells her as much.

She smiles weakly at his compliment, not meeting his eyes.

He frowns and put it back down.

"Are you o-"

"I  _told_  you I don't want to talk about Crona!" she cuts him off sharply. Soul wonders if maybe his best course of action is to retreat to his room for the rest of the night and

"I didn't mean that. I meant… are  _we_  okay?" he asks suspiciously, wondering if that's a girly question to ask. "I mean. Uh… whatever," he dismisses, and makes a move to walk out to his bedroom and get some well-needed rest. Maka stops him.

"You tell  _me_ , Soul." She says, glaring daggers at the floor in front of her.

He turns back, confused. "Uh. What?" he asks, taking a step back into the room.

She lifts her head to look at him for a few burning moments. "How are you feeling." She says tonelessly. "The ogre?"

He thinks about this, and then sits down next to her on the couch. He resonates lightly with her and then says: "Read my soul."

She closes her eyes and gets a sleepy read on her partner. "It's back to normal." Maka nods, scratching her head. "Okay. That's good, I guess." She says, her body language screaming the opposite. She leans back into the couch and covers her face with her hands.

 _It was good_.

"I have you to thank for that." A flash of gratefulness appears on her face and then one of intense guilt. He feels waves and waves negativity coming through their soul bond, though it's unreadable in nature. "Was that the wrong thing to say?"

Maka shakes her head. "S'fine."

He takes a step towards her on the couch. "Things have been way weird between us," he clears his throat. "I just… I'm glad things can go back to normal." He closes his eyes. "The last thing I want to do is hurt you."

_He's half-lying._

She absorbs this, and then nods solemnly. "Ok." She says slowly. "I… I think I need to sleep. This day has royally  _sucked_." She hauls herself off the couch and trudges slowly to her room.

He watches after her inquisitively all the way to her room, before opening the door and stepping into it, without a goodnight. He can't help but note that despite the black blood dying down, their wavelengths still feel distinctly… off.

Tsubaki's words from weeks ago flit into his mind.

_Talk to her._

_…should he talk to her?_

_He doesn't know what he'd say, for one thing._

_She was mourning Crona, and besides. He's sleep-deprived, food-deprived and probably just a teensy-bit traumatized from the past few days; who knows what kind of thing he'd say to her._

_Once those kinds of things are out there, they're hard to reign back in._

He settles on that final thought, reaching the conclusion that he'll try and talk to her in the morning.

Probably.

* * *

 _Fourteen_  hours.

No matter how you looked at the situation, it was a stupidly long amount of sleep for anyone. Counter-productively so, if Soul's stirring headache and muscle aches are anything to go by.

Or maybe his body is just punishing him for the last week.

After hitting 'snooze' on his alarm clock one too many times, the loud, ringing noise of the doorbell awakens him for good. He pads over to it, noting that there's no sign of Maka around the apartment this morning, and opens it.

" _Basketball_ , now." Black Star signals him out the door, a sense of urgency. Soul groggily rubs his eyes, and then looks down at himself.

"Black Star, I know you don't necessarily appreciate this, but I've spent the last five days in a cage the size of my bed. I  _can't_."

Black Star strokes his chin, as if ponderous. "Dammit! I didn't account for this." He says. "Guess Deathbucks will have to do."

"… can I get dressed first?"

* * *

"So. How are you doing?" Soul asks, stirring his coffee with a grim look on his face.

Black Star shrugs, as if nothing really had happened. "Fine, my dude. Glorious, in fact. I went up to the DWMA yesterday, spoke to Kid. He's stressed out of his mind trying to sort this all out. You know what he's like."

"Oh? Did you see Stein?"

"No... Kid says he's spending some time off, with his family." Black Star shakes his head. "I can't believe everything turned out that way. Freakin' Azusa, man. They're having a funeral next week, and one for Crona, too." he sighs, taking a sip of too-hot coffee and burning his tongue with a wince. "Nobody blames him. But I think he blames himself."

_It's odd hearing Black Star speak so solemnly._

"Maka feels the same way."

"No, man." he shakes his head. "Ragnarok was responsible for Crona's death, and Azusa's. Nobody else." he says a little fiercely.

"I... can understand, I guess. I feel bad about hurting Maka."

"You shouldn't blame yourself, either." he adds, scratching his blue locks awkwardly. "Look, I'm sure things'll go back to normal soon enough. They did after Asura, and that was... a lot worse." he pauses. "So, uh. Tsubaki's in a weird mood, though."

Soul's eyebrows flicker up. "Oh?"

"She keeps, like. I don't know, mothering me? Don't get me wrong, I like it when she cooks for me. But she keeps checking up on me. It bugs me out, man. I don't need that." He frowns.

Soul winces. "She's just worried about you. We all had a pretty hard time."

"Yeah, but… I mean, I didn't even remember any of it. What's the big  _deal_?"

Soul's eyes narrow. There's something a little off about his friend, today. Usually that sentence would have been met with a screaming assertion of his godliness, not a quiet shrug. He's pretty sure he understands, so he says: "Ragnarok even took over Sid and Stein, man… it doesn't mean anything."

Black Star stares off out the window and into the middle distance. "Yeah. But Stein's insane. What does that say about me?"

"You're not insane." Soul says in a deadpan voice, trying not to take offence.

"He couldn't do it to just  _anyone_. Like Maka, and Tsubaki. Azusa, too. Why me? Why am  _I_  so weak?"

Soul tries even harder not to take offence. "Maka and Azusa… have especially good powers of soul wavelength control."

"And Tsubaki?" Black Star demands.

Soul thinks for a minute. "I'm not so sure that Ragnarok couldn't have controlled Tsubaki. But it was clearly limited… otherwise, we'd have all been under his control, the whole time. I think he chose you because you're… you're powerful on your own. You don't  _need_  a weapon and Ragnarok knew that." He concludes, eyeing up his friend with a little wariness. Black Star's ego was not easily bruised, after all. If his confidence was shaken, it would probably require more than a little pep talk. "Go easy on Tsubaki. Last week sucked for everyone. She cares about you."

Black Star thinks about his words for a few seconds. "Hm." He grunts, chugging back some hot coffee. "Fine. Anyway. Is Maka ok? With Crona, and everything…"

Soul shrugs. "I don't know. She won't talk to me about it." He says, sipping an americano as they sit nonchalantly in the coffee shop. It's deliciously warm and bitter, his favourite combination.

He'd watched the barista a little too closely when he was making it. Thanks to Stein, he may never trust coffee again. And now the barista at his favorite coffee shop thought that he was into her.

Strange world.

Soul thinks to himself how especially weird it always was after a battle.  _Especially_  one like this. One minute, everything's up in the air and then next, everything's back to normal and everybody's just getting on with their lives.

Crona shows up after two years, dies, and here he is sipping coffee on a sunny morning.

Black Star's looking guilty. "She showed up at ours this morning, bright 'n' early." Black Star admits. "She'd just been on a run. Said she needed to talk to Tsubaki." Black Star eyes up his coffee, uncharacteristically un-forthcoming. "I overheard snippets of their conversation,"

Soul scoffs; rolls his eyes. "You were  _listening_. He corrects. "Did she seem ok?"

"This is why I wanted to talk to you." He frowns, giving his friend a gentle shove. "I can't believe you never told me that you and Maka  _kissed_!" he reveals, hissing the word kissed, as if it's somehow taboo, and Soul shushes him in abject horror.

"Shut up!" he frowns, feeling distinctly like a fourteen-year-old and looking round the restaurant in paranoia. " _Fuck_ ," he groans. "Is this going to be a thing now?"

"I mean. Fuckin'  _finally_ , dude." He makes a face, ignoring Soul's outburst. "I don't know how you put up with her, don't get me wrong. But didn't  _you_  at least want this?"

Soul scratches his head, unsure. "Uh. I guess."

"Then why did Maka come round ours- and  _wake me up_ \- to talk to Tsubaki at stupid o'clock in the morning? She didn't sound  _happy_ , dude." He sighs.

Soul pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration. "Why did you drag me here to talk about it?"

"I didn't, if you distinctly remember I wanted to play basketball. That's where we always talk about these things, bro." he shrugs. "But, since you're out. We might as well do it here, like girls." He grins. "Come on, Soul-y boy." He flashes that familiar kilowatt grin. "Tell Black*Star all about your problems. I can make it all better."

_Urgh. Downright creepy._

"Fine." He glares. "It was all that black blood, at first. A-at least, I think it was. Then… then it was a mixture. And now; now it can't be- because my blood's back to normal." He concludes. Black Star attempts to decipher that vague sentence for a few seconds, but Soul adds in frustration: "Look. It's Maka, y'know? I  _can't_."

"Do you  _want_  to?"

Soul resents this conversation, and Black Star right now. All he wants to do is to hang around Kid, or Kilik, or someone who wasn't so damn stubborn. "Yes." He says through his teeth.

"Then why  _can't_  you? Quit being a pussy. She's obsessed with you. Pathetic, the both of you."

Soul sighs. "You  _know_  her. She doesn't want that."

"I also ' _know'-_ " he does air quotes- "-that she was round mine this morning complaining about you." He shakes his head. "The girl annoys the crap out of me. But so help me, if you hurt her-"

"As  _if_."

"If you even make her sad, I will punch you in the balls so hard that they go inside your body! AS YOUR GOD I DEMAND THAT YOU MAKE THINGS RIGHT WITH MAKA."

_Hmph. Black Star's protective side made him an idiot. Still, at least he was back to being himself._

Soul grumbles his acquiescence. "Fine. But for the record, I've no idea why she's supposedly pissed at me." He attempts, rather un-sauvely, to change the topic. "It's not like you can talk, anyway. You and Tsubaki..." He uses his only ammunition, face contorting into a sly smile.

"That's nothing." He says, a little too quickly for Soul's liking and sipping his drink conspicuously.

Soul's eyes narrow. "Whatever, man." He utters, disbelieving.

"Talk to your  _woman_ , man."

_Sometimes, Soul thinks that Tsubaki and Black Star could be the biggest hypocrites he knew._

* * *

He doesn't see her again until dinnertime, when he waltzes in from having spent all day at the academy meeting with various people; including Nygus for a medical check-up. Suffice to say it, spending so much time in solitary confinement can mess with your psyche and your physical health.

He decides not to bring up how fucked up his psyche is already, what with having an all-seeing blood ogre inside his mind at all times.

Best not to dwell on it, he figures. Besides, the ogre had shut up again now that Ragnarok was dead.

He pushes the Maka situation to the back of his mind all day, but now, seeing her all cross-legged and unhappy on the couch makes his stomach drop a little.

"I forgot to get dinner." He admits to her, annoyed at himself. "Spent the day at the academy. Nygus needed me to do physical therapy."

Maka nods. "How was it." She says tonelessly.

"Uh… fine." He shrugs, watching her warily. "Are you… feeling better?"

She nods mechanically. "Yes, thanks."

His jaw clenches in annoyance for a split second-  _why was she being so obtuse?_ And then relaxes. He shrugs and pulls his phone out of his pocket. "Whatever. I'm getting a pizza." He changes the subject, but she doesn't seem to care. If anything, she's more pissed off.

She walks out of the room and into her bedroom, the door closing behind her with a quiet and resigned 'click'. His eyes follow her the whole way, creasing at the corners.

_Who'd have thought pizza would be so controversial?_

It's worse than if she'd slammed it.

His mind stews and an aching feeling fills his chest. A big part of him thinks seriously about calling for a pizza, going to his room and checking out for another fourteen hours, but a bigger part tells him that if he doesn't do it now, he never will.

The latter part makes him take a long inhale and walk over to her door.

He knocks once, it's all that's needed really.

"What." He hears her voice come muffled through the door.

"I… we should talk."

"Nghnnnn." Comes the noise back. He assumed it means 'come on in, dearest weapon' so he does so, realising that the source of the muffling is the fact that his meisters got her face buried in a pillow as her body lies still on her bed.

His eyebrows crinkle in sympathy and he sits next to her on her bed.

"Maka," he says simply.

Her legs curl up to her chest and she sobs against the pillow for a few seconds. Then she stops, sits up, deposits herself into his chest, and sobs in there for a further few seconds.

He does what any good weapon would do and he stays still and holds her while she cries loudly. It's odd, she's so guarded and strong all the time. Seeing her crumble is always a strange and terrible sight. It makes  _him_  the strong one, for once.

Eventually, she runs out of tears and sniffs, pulling away from him and rubbing her eyes aggressively. "Sorry." She mutters.

"I think-"

"I'm not ready to talk about Crona, Soul." She says, her intonation a little softer. He's grateful for that.

"Fine. "He holds his hands up defensively. "Black Star said you went to see Tsubaki this morning." he tries.

Maka narrows her eyes and nods. "…mmm." She admits.

"He… he, uh, mentioned that you were kinda… uh. Something was wrong, with… us. Like you were annoyed, or something."

_Jeez, Soul. Be less eloquent._

She grits her teeth, leaning back on the bed towards the wall with a hefty sigh escaping her lungs. "I don't think we can lie to each other. Things got weird. I wish we would acknowledge that instead of acting like it never happened." She pauses. "Which… we can do, if you really want to. But… I don't want to." She grimaces.

"No! I don't."

"Fine." She sighs. "Then I'll say it. It's weird. We  _kissed_. Three times. It's not normal."

He frowns. "It's normal for a weapon and meister to get closer during a tough battle." He reasons.

"Yeah, get closer, not start makin' out." She scoffs. "You think Ox and Harvar are necking in between every pre-kishin?"

_No, but this is you and me._

" _You're_  the one that was telling  _me_  about resonance and primal instincts." He points out.

"Right, but  _you're_  the one who basically admitted that it was the black blood. Nothing else you did under the influence of the black blood has any meaning. Why should this?" she throws her hands in the air.

_Because it was what I really wanted._

"Because it bothers you?" he tries instead.

"We'll get over it." She says icily.

_I don't want to._

"What harm is  _talking_  about it going to do?" he growls, that particular argument coming unnaturally to him. He was forever the one keeping schtum.

" _Fine_ , Soul." She points a finger at him, accusingly. "What do you want to  _say_?"

_I…_

_I don't know._

His silence at her question makes her blood run cold. She waits for five second and then her face turns dark again. Her toes curl against the carpet and she's visibly agitated at the situation. "Is that  _it_ , then? Everything that happened before? It was just the Black Blood after all?" she runs a hand through her hair, not pausing to let him speak. "No." she says tonelessly. "Of course it is. I'm sorry, Soul. God, everything sucks right now." She waves a hand in the air. "I need to get to bed. We'll just… we'll just talk about this some other time."

Soul blinks in utter surprise.

"Maka, I hurt you when I was like that, remember?" he points at the still-bandaged wound on her shoulder.

"So what? It wasn't  _you_. None of it was." She rolls her eyes. "How many times do we have to go through this?!"

"Right, but…" he struggle to think of a way to phrase the next bit of what he wants to say. "That… it's still a part of me."

She hunches over, hiding the fact that she's hurt by this. "Just say it. We can forget about the fact that we kissed, it's no big deal." She lies through her teeth. "So I can go to bed and finish with this godforsaken day."

"Maka, I don't really… I don't think it's a good  _idea_." He states, a little jumbled-up. "I mean, when I kissed you. I was all jumped up on black blood." He pauses. "I shouldn't have done any of that, I never wanted to-"

She sighs, ignoring the kick in the gut she feels. "Fine." She shrugs, walking over to the fridge with every intention of grabbing a glass of milk. "I'm not an idiot. You don't need to say anything else."

He seems annoyed, now. At her misunderstanding. "I have black blood. Look at my face, my teeth." He tries to point out his physical insecurities. "I don't  _do_  the dating thing."

_God, why didn't get she this? Was he being that unclear?_

"What the hell are you saying?" she snaps.

"That you deserve better, okay!" he growls loudly, frustrated at his inability to articulate his point. "Look, God, you don't you think I want this? Want  _you_?" he says frankly. "

Maka's eyebrows spring up. She's never heard him talk this way, not ever.

"W-what? You want me?" she squeaks, wondering when her life became a soap opera. He wonders the same.

"Well.  _Yeah_." He stops, realising that he's getting off track.

"So the kissing?" she frowns, speaking slowly with an inscrutable look on her face. "Was that…?"

_Fuck it. He's already gone all in._

He sighs, tries to be honest. "The first time, no. Not really. The other times… were a mixture."

"Elaborate." She wiggles a finger, like a teacher.

"Ah, I, uh…" he shrugs. "I wanted it. The Black Blood made me  _do_  it." He explains and she nods, finally understanding. There's a brief and heavy silence between them as Soul briefly regrets his entire existence and having been born, and seriously considers committing Seppuku on the spot. "Look, whatever. Like you said, we need to sleep."

Her eyebrows knit together, as if confused.

"No. Why did you say anything earlier?" she replies.

"I told you. I hurt you, when I was like that. I wanted… to be sure that it was really me. And not the blood, or the madness."

"And it wasn't?" she asks again, just to check.

He pauses, before admitting it. "No."

"A-and… before everything with Crona, you wanted… you wanted to-"

"Yeah."

_First Tsubaki, now Maka._

_Soul decides that women, in general, are too damn good at drawing out his secrets._

There's a heavy and loaded silence between them. Soul wonders if he should leave. Wonders if they're still going to be weapon partners after this.

"Soul, what are we?" she asks.

He groans. "Of all the girly-ass questions-"

"Answer it." She snaps.

_He can't._

"I can't…" he pauses. "I." he thinks, self-censoring as he speaks. "It's… uh…"

She smiles up at his stumbling, stuttering figure and decides to save him from himself. "You didn't ask me why  _I_  kissed  _you_."

He stares back at her. "Temporary insanity?" he drawls, half-joking.

"Not quite." She smiles and he scratches his head. She leans in just enough to surprise him with a brief and very chaste peck on the lips, which makes his lips curl up in amusement and a little questioning. "Just for the record, you should have done what you did in the black room  _ages_  ago."

His eyes fix on hers as they sit, still close, next to each other. "I didn't think you wanted that." He replies, his voice a little softer. "Am I an idiot?" he wonders.

"I guess I hadn't thought about it until it happened." She smiles, suddenly coy. "Which makes me a bigger idiot, I suppose."

The pair regard each other.

"Soul, what do you want?"

"I… I want you." He answers, decisively this time. "This." He clarifies.

She figures that it's the best she's going to get out of him, for now. Soul never had been the most forthcoming, and in some ways that was for the best. She was the communicator of the two of them. "I want that, too." She says, a gentle blush sweeping across her cheeks and ears. His eyes are hyper-focused on her lips which doesn't exactly help her blushing situation. With their faces now just millimetres apart, she whispers. "Is this the right time? With everything that happened…? Are we thinking straight?" a line forms between her brows. "We've been partners for  _six years_."

"So?" he wonders, trying and ultimately failing to cover up the falter in his voice.

"So what if it doesn't work out? I… I don't want to lose you." She says slowly, as if she's not sure.

He scoffs as if she's never said anything so stupid. "Maka, this is  _us_." He points out, his voice surprisingly frank.

Her eyes flicker down to his knees. Then back up to his face. A smile breaks through her turbulence. "That's all I needed you to say." She quits talking. Kisses him properly, this time.

No black blood, no madness, no lingering doubt, no rude interruptions. Just the two of them, an awkward mutual confession, and six long and abstinent years of teenage hormones driving them.

_Isn't that what a relationship is?_

She jumps on top of him, awkwardly straddling his legs and deepening their kiss. Soul's arms wrap around her protectively as she holds his face in her hands. When they part for a second, he flashes her a grin. "Woah."

She's a little breathless, but not from lack of oxygen. "Yeah, well. Had to assert my dominance, early on." She lets out a laugh which he reciprocates, running a hand through his hair.

"No, you didn't." he chuckles lowly. "So, uh. You're sure about this, then?"

Maka hesitates. "I'm not ready to deal with the Crona thing, not yet." She admits. "But… when he died, it just made me think. Our job, it's pretty dangerous, y'know? We both almost died." She shrugs. "It would suck knowing that we never… y'know," she tapers off, blushing again. "We should take opportunities. And you were right, you know. This is  _us_." She tells him informatively. "And… I think it's been a long time coming. Or so Tsubaki tells me, anyway." she has to giggle at that last part.

He nods. "Yeah."

Her head props up and she looks around the apartment suspiciously, her mind seemingly changing topic. "Is Blair around?" she sniffs.

"Uh… I don't know," he admits. "Why?"

A smirk appears on her face. "Because. I have a feeling she would be  _very_  interested in what we're going to do next."

Maybe it was just the fact that they both needed a little comfort, after the horrors of the past few days. Something to take their mind off things, just for a little while at least. Or perhaps it's the fact that Soul really doesn't trust anyone more than he trusts her, and the both of them need a little closeness- and besides, they deserved it, after everything. Maybe- and this is only really included for the sake of being exhaustive- they're both a little loopy and they'd regret saying all this the next day.

Soul doesn't care. He's finished coming up with excuses for why he shouldn't be happy. He's finished giving the ogre excuses to come out; he wants to make his own choices.

And yeah, it's possible that all this would affect their partnership. Resonance problems tended to become exacerbated by dramatic changes in the nature of a relationship, and it wasn't like they'd ever  _really_  resolved it, other than getting rid of Ragnarok.

He looks up at her now, all coy and red-faced, and decides that it really didn't  _matter_ , not as long as he loved her as much as he did. Not at long as the two of them figured it out together.

"Maka-" he starts, in an attempt to put the aforementioned thoughts into words. She rolls her eyes and shuts him up with another kiss.

_Yeah, she knew already._


	31. Chapter 31

Maka stands alone on the balcony, her hair wisping around her stony features in the wind as she stares outward into the night sky. The city is nice at night; all twinkling lit up houses and street lights which illuminate the winding cobbled road. It was times like this, and  _only_  this, that she somewhat understood her father's smoking habit.

She can vaguely hear the hubbub coming from inside the academy, but she's choosing instead to focus on the wind's soft rushing in her ears. She closes her eyes against it; feels it on every part of her body. Tries to relax into it so much that she almost blows away and becomes it. Almost.

"What are you doing out here?" Tsubaki's voice comes ringing from the door, interrupting her thoughts.

She sighs into the night air. "Just… needed a break."

Tsubaki nods and approaches her cautiously. "How are you dealing with it?" she stands alongside her friend, trying to stand in her shoes; so to speak.

Maka makes a vaguely unhappy grimace. "Mixed." She tenses her knuckles as she speaks the word; feeling them click underneath her gloves.

"That's understandable." Tsubaki nods calmly.

"I can't believe he's really gone." She breathes, so quietly that the sound could almost be mistaken for the bristling of the trees below them. "Just like that."

"I'm so sorry." Tsubaki says plainly, unsure what else to say to help. "You really did all you could, Maka. Crona was lucky to have you."

Maka sends her friend a wayward glance. "I should have done more to make sure that he was found. Before it came to all this," she waves a hand behind her, indicating the funeral service inside.

"No, Maka." Tsubaki corrects her, voice gentle but resoundingly firm. "This is not on you."

_Maka knows this, inside she really does. It was just hard to reconcile that fact with the memory of slashing Soul's black blade through her friend's chest. It's hard to remember that you did all you could when Ragnarok's voice telling you that you were a worthless friend to Crona repeats like a broken record in your head all day long._

The two women stare out into the night sky together, silent for a just a few moments.

Maka breaks it first. "Me and Soul are… a couple, now. I think." She reveals, after a moment of pause.

Tsubaki's face breaks into a slightly abashed grin against her will. "That's great news! You two are so sweet." she gushes. She just about refrains from saying 'I knew it!' and keeps her taunting pride to herself. She notices that Maka seems melancholy, and reigns in her excitement. "What's wrong? How are things going between you two?"

"Yeah. It's been good." Maka allows herself to smile, just a little and only for a second - accompanied by the tiniest of blushes. "I know that he loves me, and he makes me happy." Tsubaki has to physically restrain herself from squealing, for her friend's sake. "It just… seems like such a strange time, to be happy about it. I  _shouldn't_  be happy right now, I should be  _mourning_." She explains, conflicted.

Tsubaki refrains from bonking her friend over the her, Maka-chop style. "Maybe times are this are exactly when you need a little happiness." She shakes her head. "It doesn't mean you didn't care for Crona any less, or that you aren't mourning, either."

Maka nods slightly, trying her best to heed her friend's advice. "I guess I should be glad that there weren't more casualties."

"Mm." Tsubaki agrees. "I'm so happy that Sid has pulled through. Although, nobody expected any less from someone who's already died once and come back to life."

"And Black Star? How's he holding up?"

Tsubaki's smile falters. "I think he's a little shaken up. After Ragnarok possessed him, I mean. I think he thought he was immune to that kind of thing." She admits, sorrowful. "I'm sure that he'll bounce back, you know how he is."

"Probably just a bruised ego," Maka dismisses, her voice sounding harsh. "I'm more worried for Professor Stein, honestly."

Silence falls on the two of them as they both ponder upon their Professor's situation. He hadn't been teaching, in the two weeks that had passed since it all went down. In fact, he hadn't been doing much of anything. Kid had apparently been to visit a couple of times, as had Nygus and Spirit. The first time any of the students had seen him was today, at the funeral. He looked worse for wear, to put it mildly.

"Poor Stein." Tsubaki sighs.

"My dad said he's really torn up about Azusa," she pauses. "But… he's got his family; Marie, and Clarent. He's doing okay, really. Marie seems positive. She doesn't blame him what happened."

"I'm glad. It's not his fault." Tsubaki nods. "We should go and visit him, sometime."

Maka nods, wondering if it would make a difference. Wondering if Stein would ever get over accidentally killing Azusa, or whether that memory would stay in his mind for life. Or maybe he'd be fine; live a long and carefree life with Marie. Maybe Marie would help him to keep his mind off things.

She wonders the same for herself, too- only with Soul, not Marie.

_She will go and visit Stein, she decides. They've got something in common, now. A shared sense of guilt, to start with._

The thought just about guts her, and Tsubaki's about to say something comforting when the door swings open again, revealing another figure dressed in all-black.

"Kid?" she asks, thankful to be saved from her spiral of thought.

"Hello, girls." The Shinigami greets them. "I spotted you dart out here after the ceremony, Tsubaki. Is everything okay?" his eyes dart between the two students inquisitively.

Maka nods. "Fine, you?" she asks. There's no real need to ask, because Kid's appearance says it all. The stress of the past few weeks and the resultant fallout had taken its toll on him, to be sure. His usually perfect hairline was wonky and askew; his usually dewy, flawless skin was prone to dark circles and crow's feet. He was exhausted, plainly. Too exhaustive to even care how asymmetrical his visage was.

He nods amicably, despite all that. "I hope you both found the funeral to be tasteful."

Tsubaki nods. "It was a lovely service." She smiles.

Maka doesn't respond; doesn't need to utter some platitude. She didn't care about funerals, she'd come to realise that they were for the living and not for the dead.

_Part of her wants to chastise herself for being so cynical, and part of her wants to laugh and wonder when she became so much like Soul._

_Part of her wants to cry about her lost friend, but that wasn't likely to get her anywhere._

"I just wanted to let you know that Soul is about to play." Kid says. "If you're interested in listening." He adds, before bidding them adieu and slipping back into the room, as if he was never there.

Tsubaki and Maka share a look.

"Are you going to stay out here?" Tsubaki asks. "I want to listen to Soul's piece."

"Apparently he's planning on doing something with Marie, around her healing wavelength and sound resonance." She explains, shrugging. "Might be interesting." She adds, fiddling with her thumbnail a little awkwardly.

She follows Tsubaki adjourning inside and sees their group of their friends gathered together in a huddle. Liz and Patty spot her and give her a smile and a wave as she approaches them. "Maka!" Liz says warmly. "I haven't seen you in a few days. How are you doing, girl?" she asks, rubbing Maka comfortingly on the shoulder. If anyone else had done it, she would have probably barked at them, but there was something so effortless about Liz's ability to charm anyone.

"I'm okay, thank you." She mumbles in response.

"You have to try some of this black gateau cake, it's amazing!" Patty pipes in, wiping chocolate from around her mouth. Despite herself, Maka has to chuckle at the sight of Black Star and Patty simultaneously bent double; digging into the free buffet.

_Why are they all in such good spirits?_

She frowns at herself, knowing she shouldn't be so hard on her friends. The past few weeks had taken a heavy toll on each and every one of them, too. They're just trying to cheer her up, she knows that. So she looks back at them all; holding their breath and staring at her; and prints a smile onto her face. There's a collective exhale of relief and Tsubaki touches her shoulder.

"Hey, I think Soul might be playing in a second." Black Star notices, and the group shuffle to their seats as their white-haired friend places himself down onto the piano stool.

His eyes meet Maka's for a second.

_He looks healthier, she thinks. He's shaved again; put on some weight now that he's sleeping and eating properly._

A few friends and teachers gather round and take their seats, too, as Marie stands by the grand piano next to Soul. The last remaining dregs of people in the room notice everyone gathered and a hush descends down on them.

Marie clears her throat. "Thank you all for coming to the service today." She starts. "I managed to convince Soul to play a song for us all; in the wake of Azusa and Crona's u-untimely d-deaths." She stutters but shakes her hair back and recovers quickly. "And because all of us affected by their deaths need to begin healing, I'm going to use the sound wavelengths to project my own wavelength to you all." Maka notices that her eyes are fixed on Stein's; hidden behind his glasses. "Soul, please." She gestures over to Soul, who begins to move his fingers lightly over the keys.

The tune itself is something hauntingly beautiful; legato and melancholy with offbeat undertones in that typical Soul style. Marie closes her eyes and resonates with the sound waves; her eyesight still centred on her partner. Tsubaki gasps as she feels the power of Marie's wavelength which begins to be felt around the whole room; amplified and dispersed by Soul's music.

"Wow," she breathes, but Maka continues on looking at her partner with a sort of perturbed interest. He always looked so troubled when he played the piano, his face took on a pained look.

She resonates with  _him_  instead, seeing his eyes quirk upwards as soon as her interference into his wavelength. Given the amplification qualities of his music, it's unsurprising that Maka finds herself in the Black Room in a matter of seconds.

She transports into that sheer black, lacy dress and looks down at it with a small and teasing smile playing on her lips. "You could've kept me in my funeral dress."

He stares lazily at her from where he's sitting motionless on the piano stool. "The heart wants what the heart wants." He says with a hint of sarcasm. "You look nice." He offers, hesitantly. "You know that by resonating with me, you're missing out on Marie's wavelength, right? It might be good for you."

Maka smiles and shrugs, embarrassed. "I'd rather come and see you."

Soul regards her for a minute and then sighs, pushing his hair back from his forehead. "Suit yourself." He shakes his head, indicating that he's less than happy about the situation but also recognizing how stubborn his meister can be.

Maka sniffs, looks around the room. "Things look better in here." She comments, eyeing up the ancient gramophone which sits atop an oak end table. "The ogre's nowhere to be seen."

"Stick around long enough, you'll catch a glimpse." Soul turns back to his piano. Out there; he's still playing. Inside his soul, he doesn't play a note.

She walks over; sits next to him on the stool. He looks at her affectionately as her head lulls and lands in his shoulder with a soft thud of black fabric. "Everyone just seems so  _chilled_."

"They're not." He sighs, reaching up to softly stroke her hair. He's acutely aware of how the action comforts him more than it does her. "Remember how they always are, after a battle? It's like that… but worse."

 _Maka knows this, logically. Doesn't stop it hurting._  She mumbles something akin to this into his shoulder.

"The song is almost over, you know." He reminds her gently. "Do you want to stay in here? I can play another one, if you like."

"This is for Professor Stein, not for me."

"Can't it be for both of you?" he wonders.

"Hmph." She somewhat begrudgingly agrees with a grunted noise. "Fine. I'll stay." She agrees. "Just for one more song."

He smiles and just as his previous song slows to a finish, he segues into another tune; similar in tone though this one with a little less speed and more depth of melody. "This is one of mine." He says quietly to his shoulder-companion as he begins to play inside his Black Room, and outside.

He lets himself ad-lib for the first time in years, feeling the melody and Marie's soul tune in to create something new under his fingertips. It's a sad song; he wants people to heal, but not to forget. They're remembering Azusa; remembering Crona. The sacrifices those two made for everyone else here.

This new melody is controlled by his mind and inspired by his soul wavelength- all its flaws and patterns, along with it. In it, Soul pours all of his experiences over the past few days; all his memories of the deceased and of those that he values most in the world.

He realises, after a couple of seconds, that this new melody isn't solely his alone. The patchwork melody has elements of everyone here; everyone who Marie happens to be touching with her healing light, reflecting back and creating a positive loop of cause and effect.

_This is Soul's song, but it's not just his song._

He watches as she remains rested on him; her eyes vigilantly scanning his fingers _._ He likes it when when she does that, it's almost like she's trying to figure him out somehow. When he feels the two of them resonating like this, it's easy for both of them to forget the rest of the world and switch their focus to each other. It's something that they've always done, and now that there was a mutual understanding for how they felt about each other, it was something they'd keep doing for as long as they were partners.

In a way, Soul can barely remember why he ever considered leaving her, all those weeks ago.

They're better with each other. He can hear that just in the snippets of melody that he creates himself from their bond.

_It's Maka song, too._

 

**AN: I'm done, at last. Thanks so much y'all for reading/leaving kudos! Please let me know if you have any comments, I love feedback (good and bad!)**


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